


Stolen

by pocketmumbles (livelikejack)



Series: Derek/Scott Mythology Trifecta [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Alternate Universe - Greek Mythology, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-11
Updated: 2014-11-11
Packaged: 2018-02-25 01:12:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2603081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livelikejack/pseuds/pocketmumbles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Derek sees Scott for the first time, the first thing he thinks is, <em>I want.</em></p><p>(Or, the Greek Mythology AU where Derek is Hades and Scott is Persephone.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Part 1 of my Scerek Mythology Trifecta, or a series of three Greek Mythology stories that are completely unrelated but can be interpreted in a past lives sort of connection if you want.
> 
> The story of Persephone and Hades, as well as the creation of the seasons. This takes a much more positive/romantic slant on things, and gives Persephone much more agency than she had in the original story.
> 
> Originally posted on [Tumblr](http://pocketlass.tumblr.com/post/96152785761/im-still-feeling-so-many-scerek-hades-persephone).

When Derek sees Scott for the first time, the first thing he thinks is,  _I want_ .

It’s a hideous thought to match his hideous self, so he turns away and goes home before Melissa can properly introduce them.

(He does not run away, no matter what the Fates and their all-seeing eyes say. Erica never knows what she’s talking about, anyway.)

Scott is beautiful, just like his mother, just like all of the gods and goddesses. It’s not that Derek wants that.

(Well, of course he wants to be beautiful, too. His skin is so sallow and pale compared to theirs, dulled from an eternity of darkness while the rest bask in the sun. But there’s nothing beautiful about death, after all. There’s nothing beautiful about mortality, so it’s only fitting that there’s nothing beautiful about the Underworld and its king.)

It’s the warmth that spills from Scott like his own personal aura, the way his lips curve effortlessly as his eyes light up like the sun itself rises behind them. His smile alone could rouse Danny to light the sky with his golden chariot; his gaze could warm the earth as wholly as the first fire that Deaton brought down from Olympus.

It’s that Scott looked at him, looked into his eyes for the tiniest of moments, and Derek felt fire course through his veins. He felt sunshine warming his face, and springy earth beneath his feet, and a gentle breeze chilling his skin. It was nothing more than a fleeting glance, a chance meeting of eyes, but for the first time, Derek felt alive.

The god of the Underworld. Alive. He can practically hear Peter laughing at him from Tartarus.

He wants. He wants to feel that sunshine on his skin, that sweet breeze brushing his hair like gentle laughter. He wants to stand under that gaze and feel alive again.

He wants, and it’s hideous to even dare such a selfish thought. So he goes home and busies himself with watching over his subjects. He’s given up trying to welcome them with a smile. They’re never happy to find themselves here, after all.

There’s nothing happy about death.


	2. Part I

They see each other for the barest of moments, and then something catches in Scott’s eye and he has to blink. When he looks back, cursing his ignorance of Olympus’ complexities, the god is nowhere to be seen. “Something wrong, sweetheart?” Mom asks.

“No, I just-” He frowns at where the god had been. “Who _was_ that?”

Mom follows his gaze to the completely empty space, but instead of being confused, her face turns resigned, instead. “Oh,” she says, sounding more than a little sad. “I suppose he didn’t want to stay.”

“Who?”

“Nothing of your concern, honey,” Mom says firmly. “You remember Danny, right? Here he comes…”

Scott greets the sun god with a smile and friendly embrace, and channels as much gentleness and warmth as he can when he shakes the war god’s hand – it seems to work, since Jackson’s scowl seems to lighten a little – and smiles as blandly and politely as possible while Mom exchanges pleasantries with the mighty Laura. Someone tugs at his elbow, and Mom’s conversation doesn’t seem to be letting up any time soon, so he lets himself be led away.

“You looked like you needed rescuing,” the goddess says. “My sister never shuts up. They’ll be at it for a while.”

Sister. She must be – “Cora.” He starts to bow, but the sea goddess stops him with a wave of her hand. “Good grief, Scott. You need to get out more if you’re still bowing at everyone.”

“Well, my mother-”

“Hides you away for your own, good, yes,” Cora says, rolling her eyes. “Can’t exactly blame her. Do you know how many nieces and nephews I have by now? I’ve lost count.”

Scott doesn’t really know how to respond to someone speaking so disrespectfully of the queen of the gods, even if it is her own sister, so he settles for smiling as neutrally as possible.

Cora sighs. “Wow. You really _do_ need to get out more. How about I talk to your mother about letting you venture out sometime? I’ll send some of my people over to guard you, even.” She peers through the crowd. “Speaking of venturing out, have you seen my brother anywhere? I was looking forward to bothering him.”

“Your brother?”

“Yeah, you know, king of the underworld. Kind of dark in a really pale way, practically bleeds doom and gloom.”

Dark in a pale way? Scott remembers the god he had seen before, his pale skin standing out even more from the sun-kissed Olympians. He remembers the way his eyes pierced into Scott’s very soul, freezing him in place and taking his breath away. “Oh,” he murmurs. “That was him?”

“Oh, so you _did_ see him!” Cora chirps. “Great, where’d he go?”

He blinks. “I, uh, I’m afraid I don’t know,” he says apologetically. “I blinked and he was gone.”

Cora sighs. “That sounds like Derek.”

“Derek.” He likes the way the name rolls off his tongue, like a flower slowly unfurling its petals. A beautiful name for a beautiful god. Cora watches him curiously, and he shakes himself out of his reverie. “I’m sorry. I wish I could be of more use in helping you find him.”

“I bet you would,” Cora says slyly, and Scott feels his cheeks burn. “Don’t worry about it; I’m sure he’s gone by now. I meant it about talking to your mother, by the way,” she adds. “If you’re blushing over my _brother_ of all gods, you really do need to get out more.”

“Thank you, Cora.” He starts to bow again, and she actually reaches out and smacks him in the middle of his forehead. “Seriously, Scott! No one cares about formalities!”

He starts to understand what Cora means when Jackson somehow ends up getting thrown through a wall.

 

* * *

 

Derek should have known something was amiss when Laura told him to meet Allison and Malia at the field. Or, well, told him through Stiles, who was the only one who visited the Underworld anymore. “Says she has something for you, or whatever,” Stiles said. “You kind of owe it to her, since you skipped out early on the party.”

“I didn’t want to go in the first place,” Derek grumbled. “It’s not – I’m not meant to be up there.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re all comfortable in your dark little hole.” Stiles waved a hand dismissively. It was easy for him to say; he just dropped off the new souls down here and left again. Derek actually had to stay and take care of them. “But, I mean, c’mon, man! Everyone was there! Melissa finally brought Scott around! I wanted you to meet him, he’s a great guy.”

Derek resolutely did not think of Scott smiling at him like a sunbeam. “I’m sure he is. If he actually tolerates you, he must be the nicest guy on earth.”

Stiles clutched his chest. “That hurts, Derek. That really does. Don’t forget about tomorrow, okay; Laura’ll cut my feet off if you don’t show up.”

“Well, then, maybe I shouldn’t.”

“Yeah, and then you’ll actually have to _leave_ this place every now and then to gather your souls,” Stiles retorted. He paused, running a hand through his hair. “Look, Derek, I know I joke a lot, but it’s because I have to, you know? You know, guiding the mortals down here after they die…it’s not easy, what we do. Having friends helps.”

“I have friends.”

“Your pet dog does not count.” Derek opened his mouth. “Neither do the Fates.”

“Why don’t the Fates count?”

“Because you actually have to ask that question,” Stiles said. He even sounded a little sad about it. “Tomorrow. Don’t forget.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

“I mean it about the friends thing, too,” Stiles added, then flew away before Derek could muster up the energy for a scathing retort.

He should have known something was amiss. He _really_ should have known when Boyd told him to take the chariot instead of walking, like he’d planned. (Malia thought it was hilarious when he punched through the earth. Chariots were just showy. He didn’t even know why he had one in the first place.) But he was still caught up in Scott’s smile and Stiles’ annoying words, so he rode the chariot to the field without a second thought.

He should have known. He really should have known.

But instead, his chariot bursts through the earth, and he finds himself staring straight into Scott’s shocked eyes. The young god’s hand is still outstretched, undoubtedly towards a beautiful flower that Derek trampled right over, but for a moment it almost looks like he’s reaching for him.

Scott’s eyes widen, and he falls as the earth crumbles beneath him. Derek tries to tell himself that it’s just instinct making him reach out to catch Scott. He tries to tell himself that he’s just trying to keep Scott from getting trampled beneath the chariot’s wheels. The sudden weight in the chariot spooks the horses, and they rush back beneath the earth and away from Malia and Allison’s incriminating stares.

He tries to tell himself that it’s all an accident, that he didn’t mean to, that it’s just a series of coincidences and he’ll set it all right, once he gets out of this damned chariot.

He tries to tell himself that he didn’t just steal Melissa’s son like some covetable trophy.

He doesn’t try to tell himself that he didn’t want to. Scott feels as hot as the sun, searing in Derek’s arms and making his heart pound. Derek breathes in the scent of flowers and sunshine and hates himself more and more with every turn of the chariot’s wheels.

 

Scott loves flowers. He loves coaxing plants out of the ground, singing songs as the grass grows, and tapping on shy buds to encourage them into bloom. He loves being around flowers; he’s grown up with them. A field full of them is great, is wonderful, is…

…is exactly what he’s always been around his entire life. It’s not so much his comfort zone as it is, well, his only zone. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Malia says, throwing her arms wide while Cora’s sea nymphs skip through the grass.

He smiles, and it’s only a little forced. He really does love flowers, after all. “It’s breathtaking. Thank you for bringing me here.”

Allison tucks her elbow through his as Malia dashes off to chase a rabbit. “Baby steps,” she says with a knowing smile. “First step’s flower fields, and maybe next time your mother’ll let us take you to the sea!”

He’s never been to the sea, but Stiles has told him so many stories about it. Water that tastes like tangy salt and hangs thick in the air, sand finer than the softest soil, shells that carry the waves’ echoes when you hold them to your ear. He’d brought Scott a shell, once, and he still listens to it at night, imagining waves to match the echoes. “It’d be nice to go where Laura’s siblings live,” he says.

“Siblings,” Allison repeats. The corner of her mouth quirks. “As in, not just Cora?”

His eyes widen. “I, uh-”

“It’s all right, Scott.” She pats his arm. “Like I said. Baby steps.” She leaves to go find Malia, so Scott wanders through the field and coaxes buds open like he always does. A new one catches his eye, standing proud and alone in a sea of poppies. He tilts his head, puzzled, and walks towards it. Maybe there are other buds like it that he just can’t see from here. He reaches out to stroke its petals, and the ground collapses beneath his feet.

It all happens so fast. He stumbles to his knees first, clinging to the edge of the earth as a majestic chariot rises to meet him, and he barely registers the other god’s stunned stare before he pitches headfirst into the chasm.

Derek plucks him out of the air and pulls him to safety, holding him close as the horses scream and plunge into darkness. His chest is cool and comforting against Scott’s cheek, his arm a solid strength at his back. Scott gulps in air and clutches Derek’s tunic, tucking his face further away from the wind.

He doesn’t realize they’ve stopped until he can hear his own breaths again, jagged and harsh in the quiet. Scott lifts his head carefully and finds his footing. “Where are we?” he asks.

Derek stands still as a statue, and Scott belatedly lets go of his tunic. He winces when he sees how wrinkled he’s made the previously pristine cloth. “Sorry,” he mumbles.

He watches Derek’s shoulders jerk away from him, and looks up to see Derek staring at him like he’s an idiot. He’s gotten pretty familiar with the look since Mom decided let the Olympians take him along with them on outings. That’s him, the clueless little tagalong. “You’re in Underworld,” Derek says slowly, and, oh. His voice is so much softer than Scott had expected.

Now that they’re out of the sun, he can see how Derek’s skin glows, almost as if letting off his own light. It’s mesmerizing, and Scott reluctantly drags his eyes away to look around him. He’s never seen shadows like this before, and the painstakingly carved rocks are nothing short of breathtaking. “It’s beautiful.”

“You don’t have to say that.” Derek’s mouth curves down as he turns away and steps gracefully out of the chariot. He starts to hold out a hand to help Scott down, then pulls it back at the last second, then reaches forward again, fingers curling uncomfortably into his palm. Maybe he doesn’t like being touched. Scott already messed up his clothes, after all. He jumps down from the chariot as neatly as he can manage and only stumbles a little. Derek quickly steadies him, then jerks his hands away as if he’s been burned. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” Scott repeats. “For what?”

Derek clenches his fists at his side, brows drawn together. “I stole you,” he blurts, and disappears in a whirl of his cloak.

Scott blinks the wind out of his eyes, looking around futilely for the other god. One of the horses nudges his shoulder, and he pets his nose absently. “I…didn’t know that I could be stolen,” he says faintly.

Silence answers him.

 

* * *

 

“Derek, Derek, Derek,” Erica chides when he sits down between her and Boyd, “Oh, Derek, what have you done?”

“I didn’t mean to,” he says, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that he _wanted_ to. “I’m going to take him back. I will.”

“Yeah, I can see that by how you immediately ran away and hid,” Boyd says.

“I panicked!” He sounds more like a petulant child than the king of the Underworld, but he doesn’t care. It’s not like the dead are going to judge him for it, and the Fates already judge him for everything. “I stole a god, Boyd. I stole _Melissa’s_ son.”

“He has a name, you know,” Erica says, twisting her mouth the way she does when she’s found someone lacking. “He’s a god in his own right.”

“Which makes it even worse!”

“And yet here you are, panicking at us instead of talking to him or taking him home like you keep saying you will,” Boyd says. He sighs long-sufferingly. “Just go on and spit out what you want to say already.”

It’s no use trying to hide from Boyd, who measures out the life of every soul on earth. “I don’t want to take him back,” he whispers. He doesn’t have to raise his voice, or even say it out loud, really; they’ll hear him anyway. “I want to keep him.”

“Wrong.” Erica shakes her head. “You’re saying it all wrong, Derek. You really need to get out more. See more people. Make more friends.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Derek demands. “And I’m not saying anything wrong. I mean, it _is_ wrong, it’s terrible, it’s disgusting, but it’s what I’ve been thinking ever since I first saw him.”

“It’s wrong because you’re still thinking like a king,” Boyd says. “You may rule here, but Scott will never be your subject.” He watches Derek impassively, and Derek tries not to flinch at his words.

“You don’t want to keep him,” Erica says. “You want him to stay.”

“Keeping, staying, it’s all the same thing here, Erica.” Derek shakes his head. “This is the Underworld. No one _chooses_ to be here.”

She looks at him sadly. “You did.”

“That’s – that was different.” The inevitability of death came to him as naturally as the thunderbolts did to Laura, or Cora’s trident. He was the last to be freed from Peter’s hold, the end of the line. The Underworld suits him.

The Underworld doesn’t suit Scott at all. He’s sunshine, and prosperity, and joy, and everything beautiful about life. He’s a god, untainted by war or strife. It doesn’t matter that Derek would love him faithfully and give him everything his kingdom had to offer. The entire worth of the Underworld pales in comparison to even the tiniest plant shoot in the sun.

“There’s a difference,” Boyd says gently, pulling Derek out of his thoughts. “Derek, you know you can’t keep a god.”

“I know.” He nods resolutely, swallowing past the lump in his throat. “I’ll take him back.”

Erica’s mouth twists again. “That’s not-” she begins, then sighs, exchanging a glance with Boyd. “You’re really gone over Scott, aren’t you?”

He laughs humorlessly. “How can you tell?”

“Well,” Boyd says, “We’ve been talking for a while, and you still haven’t noticed Isaac isn’t here at all.”

Derek jolts upright. Erica’s spindle turns, as always, and Boyd measures quietly, but he doesn’t hear the rhythmic clipping of Isaac’s shears. “Where is he?”

“Where do you think?”

“Oh, no.” He leaps to his feet. “This is bad.”

“Kind of funny how you’re not bothered by just leaving Scott all on his own in the middle of the Underworld, but when someone goes to actually talk to him you start to panic,” Erica says. Her words sting, but Derek’s always disappointing her one way or another. He has more pressing matters at hand.

“Isaac’s always carrying around those seeds of his,” he says. “What if Scott eats one of them?”

“Oh, no,” Erica deadpans. “Then the rules say he’ll have to stay here, that’s terrible.” She looks at him sharply. “Isn’t that what you want?”

“I don’t want to _force_ him to stay!” He runs out of the room. “Don’t let him eat anything!”

“You’re the king here, _you_ don’t let him eat anything!” Erica yells after him. She turns to Boyd, amused. “So he does understand, after all.”

“Not so sure he understands that he does, though.”

She hums in agreement and turns the spindle.

 

“Well, this is awkward.”

Scott looks up from petting the horses to see a tall, thin man in front of him, tapping a pair of shears against his nose. “I remember every thread I’ve ever cut,” he continues thoughtfully, “And I don’t remember yours at all. Yet here you are.”

“Hello,” Scott says, because Mom always taught him to be polite. It’s probably doubly important in the Underworld. “My name is-”

“You don’t belong here.”

Scott shuts his mouth, taken aback. “Well, um. Derek very graciously brought me here, and I think that’s up to him to decide.”

“Graciously? Is that what we’re calling it?” He snorts. “You should leave.”

“But I just got here.”

He tilts his head at Scott, one hand coming up to rest on his hip. “Interesting. So you’re not bothered that you don’t know the way out?”

“I’m sure someone will show me the way eventually,” Scott says, shrugging.

“And what if I showed you the way right now?”

Scott blinks. “That would be very kind of you, and I would greatly appreciate it,” he says. “But I just got here.” He doesn’t understand why the man is so keen on him leaving, unless – “Did Derek not want to bring me here?” he asks. “Did he send you to take me away?”

“You mean, take you back home?” The man says it slowly, deliberately, as if Scott’s missing some sort of important hidden meaning. Scott shrugs. He’s always missing something. The man squints. “You are very interesting, Scott. Isaac, at your service.” He sketches an exaggerated bow, bending his lanky form in half and nearly touching his curly head to the floor.

“Um, pleasure to meet you.”

“And I do mean at _your_ service,” Isaac says as he straightens. “Who cares what Derek says, I don’t have to listen to him.”

“So Derek doesn’t want me to leave?” Scott asks, and just barely refrains from adding, “yet.” He’d left so quickly, he’s probably realized that Scott’s more trouble than he’s worth.

Isaac laughs instead of answering. Or maybe laughing _is_ his way of answering. Scott doesn’t know much about the Fates, except that they seem to know more than anyone else. Even Allison had admitted that much. “Come on. I’ll show you around.”

Scott hesitates. “I don’t want to inconvenience you…”

“I just told you, I don’t have to listen to Derek,” Isaac says, making a big show of tucking his shears into a pocket. “I can do whatever I want, and right now I want to show you the Underworld.” He throws his arms out. “Shining, shimmering, splendid.”

“What?”

“Give it time; you’ll get it eventually.”

Scott’s seen rivers before, of course, but never one so grand as the Styx. He feels like Isaac leads him along its banks forever, watching its waters run rough and choppy as punished souls battle its rapids, smoothing out to sparkling calm, and stretching so wide he can’t even see the other side anymore. “Why are there souls in there?” he asks Isaac.

“Balance,” Isaac shrugs. “They did terrible things when they were alive, so now terrible things happen to them in death.”

“Who decides what happens to them?”

“Derek.”

“Oh.” He thinks of the souls he’d seen, gurgling and thrashing in the waves. He doesn’t think he’d want to listen to any seashells that wash up on these shores. Isaac watches him carefully. “You want me to take you back home?” he asks, for the hundredth time.

Scott knows all about life. He knows about growing and thriving, watching the earth and all its wonderful bounties live and live and live. He knows about the mortals who harvest his work and sing his praises, showering him with gratitude and joy. But death is part of life, too. Just because he never saw it, just because his mother and all the gods shielded him from it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. Scott shakes his head. “No. I want…I want to understand.”

“Hm.” Isaac turns, and Scott follows him along the riverbank. “Lesson one about death: it happens whether you understand it or not.” Scott nods. “Come on. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

He follows Isaac along the river to a new bank, where Scott can make out a small boat with a figure crouched over it. It straightens as they approach. “Absolutely not, Isaac.”

Isaac holds his hands out. “Aw, come on, Braeden! Just this once.”

“That’s what you said last time. And the time before that. And the time before _that_. ‘Just this once, Braeden.’ ‘I owe you one, Braeden.’ ‘I swear I’ll pay next time, Braeden.’ _No_.”

“It’s not for me.” Braeden raises an eyebrow. “Well, okay, it’s kind of for me, because I have to come, too, but it’s for my friend, here. Scott, this is Braeden. Braeden, Scott.”

She eyes Scott skeptically. “You’re not from around here.”

Isaac loops an arm around his neck. “He’s _Melissa’s_ _son_ ,” he says, leaning towards Braeden conspiratorially.

She arches an eyebrow. “So this is the one Derek’s been…? Well, then, that changes things.” Isaac grins. “Double the price.”

Isaac’s grin slides off his face. “Aw, come on!”

“You never pay, Isaac,” Braeden says firmly. “Girl’s got to eat.”

Isaac sighs, sounding extremely put-upon. “Fine,” he says, and drags a handful of red seeds out of his pocket. “How about this?”

Scott blinks. “Pomegranates?”

Braeden pauses in her inspection of the seeds. “What’s it to you?”

“I – uh.” It’s silly, nothing really, just – “They can grow here?”

“They’re Derek’s,” Braeden says. “Don’t really know how he gets them. Don’t really care, since we don’t get much of anything else down here.” She pops the seeds into her mouth, closing her eyes to relish the taste. “All right. Hop on in.”

Scott’s swum in lakes and streams, but he’s never been in a boat before. He didn’t realize it would rock so much, bobbing over what feels like every single wave Braeden ferries them through. They don’t laugh when he grips the edge of the boat, though, and he appreciates their kindness.

“Thank you,” he says, bowing politely to Braeden after she helps him out of the boat (he only trips once – who knew solid ground could feel so wobbly). “I wish I had something to repay you.”

“Don’t worry about it, Scott,” Braeden says, watching him with an odd look on her face. “You’re really something else, aren’t you?”

“Um.” He doesn’t really understand what she means. “I guess?”

_“Scott?”_

Scott spins around and sees Stiles guiding a soul towards them with a gentle hand on her back. The soul offers Braeden a coin, who accepts it silently and begins to row the boat back the way they came. “Scott,” Stiles repeats. “What are you doing here?”

“I, well, it’s kind of a long story, but I…kind of…fell?” Scott tries. He isn’t surprised by Stiles’ completely unimpressed face.

“Scott, do you know how long it’s been?” he demands. “Your mom’s been looking everywhere for you. Come on, let’s go, I’ll take you back home.”

“But I just got here,” Scott says. He tugs his hand out of Stiles’ grip. “Why do I have to go?”

“You’re kidding, right?” Stiles starts backing up, jerking his head for Scott to follow him. “This is the Underworld. Why _wouldn’t_ you want to go? No offense, Isaac.”

“None taken,” Isaac says nonchalantly.

Scott hesitates, glancing back at Isaac. “Mom’ll never let me come back here again, will she?”

“Scott, she never wanted you to come here at _all_. You have no idea how pissed she’s going to be when she finds out you’re stuck here.”

“But I’m not stuck, though,” Scott says. “I know the way out, now. I can leave whenever I want.”

“And you don’t want to leave.” He sounds more than resigned than disbelieving, which means that Scott’s winning him over.

Scott nods. “Not yet. If I can never come back, I want to learn as much as I can. Don’t tell her, yet? Please?” Stiles hesitates, clearly torn, so he presses. “Please, Stiles. I need you to do this for me.”

Stiles groans, dragging his hands through his hair. “I’m gonna get in so much trouble…fine. I won’t tell anyone I saw you here. It’s not going to last forever, you know. They’ll find you eventually.”

“I know. I just want a little more time.”

“Okay,” Stiles says unhappily. He chews his lip, then dashes forward and pulls Scott into a quick hug. “Don’t do anything stupid, okay?”

Scott laughs, surprised. “Stiles, I’ll be fine.”

“It’s just…it’s the Underworld, you know?” Stiles shivers. “Scary stuff.”

“Death is a natural part of life,” Scott says. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.” Isaac laughs. “What? It’s true.”

“You’re adorable,” Isaac says. He throws an arm around Stiles shoulder, casually oblivious to Stiles’ discomfort. “Stiles, we’ll walk you out. I wanted Scott to meet the puppy, anyway.”

“He hasn’t met the puppy?” Stiles cackles. “Oh, boy. Scotty, you’re in for a treat.”

Scott blinks as two different arms loop over his shoulders and herd him towards the gates. “Okay, _now_ I’m getting a little scared.”

 

Derek searches the Fields of Punishment, the Fields of Asphodel, and the Elysian Fields for Scott before he hears a shriek at the gates. He runs as fast as he can, only to find Scott helpless on his back in front of the hellhound, arms raised as the three heads lunge forward with yawning jaws and –

– lick Scott from head to toe.

And yip.

Derek stares, dumbfounded, as his fearsome hellhound crouches in front of Scott and snuffles at him with a nose nearly as large as the god’s head. Scott finally manages to sit upright and uses both of his hands to pet Cerberus’ heads, laughing while Cerberus’ tail wags like mad. “I knew he’d love you!” Isaac crows from his perch on the hellhound’s back. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him this happy. Have you, Derek?”

“Derek?” Scott’s eyes widen, and he scrambles up and away from Cerberus. “I’m sorry,” he says quickly, hands clasped behind his back. “I didn’t know you were – I should have seen you, I’m sorry.” Cerberus whines and noses at Scott, nearly knocking him over.

Derek still hasn’t quite managed to get his breath back or calm his pounding heart. He’d thought Scott was going to – that he’d – “I heard you scream.”

Scott hunches his shoulders. “Yeah,” he says guiltily, “Cerberus picked me up, and I was kind of, um, surprised?” He rubs the back of his head with a drool-drenched hand. “I’ve never been picked up by a giant hellhound before.”

“First time for everything,” Isaac says breezily, sliding off of Cerberus’ back. “Isn’t that right, Derek?” He slings an arm around Derek’s neck and leans closer. “Calm down, you’re scaring him.”

“I _am_ calm,” he snaps. Scott doesn’t move a muscle, but Cerberus growls at Derek – growlsat _Derek_ , who’d raised him from a floppy-eared pup as tall as his waist – and nuzzles Scott with all three heads. Okay, so Isaac may have a point. Derek takes a deep breath and tries again. “I am calm.” Better. Sort of.

Isaac leans back. “If you say so. Your puppy slobbered all over Scott’s clothes; you should probably get him some new ones.”

“Oh, it’s totally fine,” Scott says, wiping his slobber-covered arm on his slobber-covered tunic. “Don’t worry about it.”

Derek and Isaac stare at him as he drips all over the stone floor. “Really,” Scott says. “I can barely even tell it’s there.”

“I’ll find you some new clothes!” Isaac chirps. “Derek, you should probably help him get cleaned up.”

“Wait!” they yell as Isaac skips away, far too gleefully for Derek’s liking. Scott looks about as panicked as Derek feels, and he can’t decide if that’s a bad thing or a good thing.

(It’s definitely a bad thing.)

“Well, come on,” he says, and Scott hurries past him before he can see Derek’s outstretched hand. Derek deserves it. He’s been nothing but disrespectful to Scott ever since he dragged him below the earth. He closes his fingers around thin air and watches Scott walk away from him, towards – “Where are you going?”

Scott flinches before he turns to face Derek. Great. “Uh, the river,” he says, backing closer to the shore. “It’s calm here, I can just dip in and-”

“No!” He lunges forward and grabs Scott by the wrist, pulling him away from the water’s edge. Scott’s eyes flick between his wrist and Derek’s face, breath shallowing, and Derek quickly lets go. “I mean – that’s Lethe. If you drink the water, you’ll lose your memory.”

“Well, I wasn’t going to drink from it,” Scott mutters. He tilts his chin up at Derek, arms crossed. “Besides, I’m a god. I know no one believes me, but I _can_ actually take care of myself.”

“I never said you couldn’t,” Derek says. Scott blinks, brows drawing together. “But Lethe was here first.” He crouches and runs his hand through the current, letting whispers of past lives and the warm comfort of oblivion slide through his fingers. “We may be gods, but we’re not all-powerful.”

Scott slowly uncrosses his arms. “But you’re a king.”

“I’m only king because the Underworld allows it,” Derek says. “I’m a caretaker, not a commander.” He looks up at Scott’s baffled expression. “Not what you were expecting?”

“I don’t know _what_ I was expecting,” Scott says. He runs a hand absently through his hair, then winces when it gets stuck in Cerberus’ slobber. “So, um, is there another place I can wash this off?”

He smiles at Derek as he asks, as hesitant as the early hours of dawn, but it’s still so radiant that Derek can feel the corners of his own mouth lifting. He shakes the last of Lethe’s drops from his fingertips and stands. “Follow me.”

When he holds out his hand, Scott takes it.

 

* * *

 

Scott doesn’t understand Derek.

It’s not exactly surprising – he never understands _anything_ – but he doesn’t understand Derek at all, and it bothers him more than he’d like to admit. He tugs at the tunic Isaac found for him, falling to his ankles and bleached whiter than any cloth he’s ever seen before. Derek had seemed displeased when he saw Scott wearing it, and Scott doesn’t understand why. Isaac assured him that they weren’t Derek’s clothes, that he shouldn’t worry about Derek, but – but he doesn’t understand.

He understands why Derek sends Isaac away – the Fates have more important things to do than entertain a silly god, after all – but he doesn’t understand why Derek stays. He doesn’t understand why he shows Scott the Asphodel Meadows, watching him with something akin to fear and answering Scott’s questions with apologies in the back of his throat. He doesn’t understand why Derek walks with him along Styx’s banks and explains mortal souls so earnestly that he trips over his own words. He doesn’t understand why Derek stares in shock when Scott laughs, before smiling as brightly and secretively as the first star appearing in the night’s sky. He doesn’t understand how Derek can speak so eagerly about mortal souls, all but glowing with compassion, but fade away when Scott asks about himself.

He understands, a little, why Derek falls silent when they reach the Phlegethon. Scott can’t see where the fiery rapids end, but Mom told him about Tartarus, and Peter. He instinctively reaches out to comfort Derek before remembering that he doesn’t like to be touched, but Derek lets their fingers wind together and clutches his hand like a lifeline.

Scott knows what it’s like to quite literally be the answer to someone’s prayers, and he knows what it’s like to for someone to stare at him like he’s their salvation. But when Derek squeezes his hand so hard it trembles, gaze flitting everywhere but on him, he feels completely out of his depth. He understands distant worship and humble benevolence. But he doesn’t understand someone reaching out to him as an equal, or accepting his comfort on such a deeply personal level. It’s – invasive, almost, the way the world seems to shrink down to just the two of them. He feels rooted in place and floating away all at once, safe and secure and utterly lost. He doesn’t understand.

He doesn’t understand Derek.

Truth be told, he doesn’t really understand himself anymore, either.

He’s felt uneasy ever since they left the Asphodel Meadows, and he doesn’t understand why. Derek takes him to Elysium and hangs back nervously, and Scott doesn’t understand why. He stares out at the bright fields, shining with their own rich warmth that’s reminiscent of the sun and somehow completely different. It’s calm, serene, an utterly peaceful paradise – and Scott feels frantic, and he doesn’t understand why. His hands itch, and he doesn’t understand why. He turns to Derek, wishing he had a reason to take his hand again. “You made this?”

“Just…guided it, really,” Derek says, looking more and more uncomfortable by the second. “It was already – I just made it a little more like what mortals were used to, that’s all.”

“That’s very thoughtful of you.”

Derek looks at the ground. “It’s for them,” he says softly. “All of this, it’s – it’s all for them. It’s the least I could do.”

Scott grips his shoulder, shocking Derek into meeting his eyes. “What you do is amazing,” he says seriously. “You take care of so many, and you care about every single one of them. You do so much for them. I mean, it’s more than I can do,” he adds with a chuckle. It doesn’t spark a smile out of Derek like before, though. “All I’m good for is growing…” He trails off as he realizes what’s been bothering him about the fields. “…flowers.”

“Scott.” He can hear the desperation in Derek’s voice, but he steps further into Elysium, straining his eyes to see what he already knows. “Scott, I-”

“Nothing grows here.”

“The Underworld can’t create life,” Derek says haltingly. “Mortals, they die and come here to stay, but your plants, they bloom forever. They never stop living, so that’s where they stay.”

He understands. He can only grow life, and the Underworld can do everything but that. He has nothing to give to Derek’s kingdom. He’s useless. “I don’t have a place here.”

Derek doesn’t try to argue or reassure him. He just stares into Scott’s eyes, steady and resigned. “It’s time for me to take you home.”

He doesn’t try to argue or ask to stay. He should tell him that he can leave on his own, that he doesn’t need Derek to escort him to his mother’s house like an errant child, but he can’t bring himself to say goodbye. He looks away first, selfishly clinging to any last moments he can spend with Derek before he’s gone forever.

“Could I.” Derek steps closer, close enough to touch, closer than he’s ever been. Scott tilts his head back to look at him, breath catching the way it did when he first saw the god of the Underworld. “There was one last thing I wanted to show you before you – before I took you back. Could I – would you-”

“Yes,” he says immediately. “I-” don’t want to go, don’t want to leave, don’t want to leave _you_ , “-yes.”

 

Derek doesn’t know why he said it. He shouldn’t be stalling – _again_ – he should be taking Scott home right now, before he sees the sunshine fade from his eyes again. Scott doesn’t want to be here, Scott doesn’t feel welcome here, and it doesn’t matter how badly Derek wants him to be; everything about his kingdom is repulsive to everything about Scott.

He stole a god. He stole _Scott_. He’s despicable, and he can’t stop himself from digging his hole even deeper.

But…he can’t bear the look on Scott’s face when he’d realized just how barren the Underworld was. Nothing grows here, but – but there’s…

He shouldn’t have. But part of him is desperate to prove to Scott that – that what? That he could offer him one measly whisper of the earth’s bounty? As if that could somehow convince Scott to stay?

He regrets it as soon as he leads Scott into the room, as soon as Scott’s eyes zero in on the pomegranate tree and its impossible fruit in the heart of the Underworld. He regrets it as Scott stumbles forward, mouth hanging open in disbelief and what looks dangerously close to devastation. “That’s,” Scott gasps, “How…?”

“Your mother gave it me,” Derek says. “She wanted me to have something from the earth, since I have as much a claim to it as the rest.” He doesn’t, not really; he has a responsibility to care for it, just like they all do, but he’s so far removed from it that it hardly matters. Besides, mortals fear him more than all the other gods combined. “Said it meant a lot to her, so I should have it.”

Scott touches its trunk with shaking fingers. “It’s the first fruit I ever made,” he says. He shakes his head, letting out that self-deprecating chuckle that makes Derek’s heart sink. “You can tell; the seeds are all smushed together because I just kept adding them without thinking, and they just burst all over the place when you try to get them out…I hated it. I was young, and stupid, so I stopped taking care of it and started making berries instead. I thought if I could just forget about it, then I wouldn’t have to worry about it.” He snorts. “Stupid, right?”

“We’re all stupid when we’re young,” Derek says. He steps closer, clenching his hand to stop himself from reaching out. “And some of us are stupid when we’re old, too. You know how many nieces and nephews I have by now? I’ve lost count.”

Scott laughs, the sweet, melodic one that shoots fire through Derek’s gut. “Mom always used the pomegranates as a lesson for me: that everything’s deserving of care and love, and nothing can ever really be forgotten. She told me she gave the tree to someone who understood that and would make up for all those years I abandoned it. I always thought she meant Lydia, since she planted the first one for the mortals.” He smiles at the tree, running his hand gently over a small patch of bark that had never completely filled in. “But that was just a cutting, wasn’t it? Mom gave the tree to you.”

Derek stares at Scott, taken aback. “I…” he says faintly. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to take what was yours, you can-”

“What?” Scott stares at him, face scrunched up in confusion. “It’s not mine.”

“You made it.”

“And then I _abandoned_ it,” Scott says firmly. “I don’t get to claim it as my own if I abandoned it. Besides, you’ve taken such good care of it. Although I still don’t understand how it…” He gestures at the ripe fruit, just waiting to be plucked. “Grows.”

“Um.” Derek ducks his head. “Melissa said it was near death when she found it, so its nature lets it grow here.” He stares guiltily at the floor until Scott laughs disbelievingly, doubling over into his field of vision.

“She never told me that!” Scott snorts. “I’m a god of the harvest, and I practically killed a tree. And you’re the god of death, and here you are giving it a second life.” He grins up at Derek, eyes crinkled with mirth. “We make one crazy pair.”

Derek can’t help but smile back, not when Scott beams as brightly as the sun that his impossible tree should need to bloom. “Yeah. Yeah, we do.”

Scott’s face flushes, and he turns back to the tree. “Thank you for showing me this. I’d always wondered what happened to it,” he says. “I’m glad it’s with you. It’s happy here, I can tell.”

He tries not to squirm under Scott’s words. They make him feel tingly and overheated, somehow. “I’m glad you trust me with your tree.”

“Of course I do,” Scott says, sounding slightly surprised. “And it’s not my tree, Derek, it’s yours.”

“But you-” Derek begins, but gives up when he sees the argument rising in Scott’s eyes. “Okay. It’s _our_ tree,” he concedes, and then immediately regrets it.

“Ours,” Scott repeats, a soft smile blossoming across his face. “I like the sound of that.”

Derek likes the sound of that, too. He loves it, even. He loves – no. No. He can’t. He clears his throat and plucks a fruit, quickly peeling it open and tapping out a handful of seeds. “I wanted to – I mean, I thought you might – uh – here,” he says lamely, thrusting them at Scott. “These are for you.”

His plan had been stupid from the beginning, but it’s even stupider now that he knows the fruit actually belongs to Scott. Scott, though, cups his hands around the seeds as if they were the most precious of jewels. “Thank you.”

“Don’t eat-” Derek adds, then stops. Scott watches him quizzically. “I mean. I want you to _keep_ them.” He stresses the words carefully and hopes that Scott understands. “So you don’t forget me.”

Scott looks stricken. “Derek, I could never forget you. This has – I’ve never-” He sighs, scrunching his mouth in frustration. “You’re taking care of our tree,” he says finally. “I could never forget you, for that.”

His heart lurches. He wants to – he _wants_. He busies himself instead with tearing off a corner of his tunic and wrapping the seeds in the gray fabric. “Seven seeds,” Scott says as he watches Derek tie the ends together. “One for every day of the week that I’ll never forget you.” He tucks the packet carefully into his pocket. “I’ll keep them forever. But I don’t need seeds to remember you.”

“I’m not really one to be remembered,” Derek says absently. It’s just part of being the god of death. He’s inevitable, so he’s rarely at the front of anyone’s thoughts or prayers. He’s used to it. He understands.

But Scott seems to take personal offense to his words, seizing the front of his tunic and yanking him forward. “Yes, you are,” he says fiercely, eyes blazing, and crushes their mouths together.

His heart pounds, his entire body thrums, and he forgets how to breathe. Scott kisses him again before slowly pulling away, and Derek’s hands raise of their own volition to cup his face. He keeps his eyes squeezed shut, savoring the warmth of Scott’s touch and the taste of sweet morning dew on lips. “Was that okay?” Scott asks, breath puffing across Derek’s face like a summer breeze.

Derek feels everything and nothing at once, locked into Scott’s arms and scattered across the Underworld. He opens his eyes slowly, breathing in the scent of cool grass and Lethe’s sweet water, Braeden leading a soul by the hand and Scott’s fingers curling around his, his own thudding heart and the rapid staccato of Isaac’s shears –

Wait. That’s not right. He jerks back, hands falling to his sides as he turns blindly towards the Fates. Erica’s spindle turns as steadily as always, and Boyd measures as carefully as always, but Isaac’s shears are an indiscernible blur as he cuts away. “Derek?” Scott asks.

“Something’s wrong,” he says faintly. There’s no rhythm to Isaac’s motions, there’s no reason for him to be doing this. It’s not the steady clips of natural death, it’s not the swift cut of lives lost to war, it’s…chaos. “I have to go.” He starts for the door, then turns. “It’s just – something’s wrong, I don’t…” He doesn’t know how to explain, when he doesn’t even understand what’s happening. “I’ll be back, I promise.”

“Okay,” Scott says, confusion heavy in his voice. “Is it because I-”

“No!” Derek says quickly. “No, it’s not – I just-” The clipping pounds louder and louder in his head, harsh and jarring and utterly nonsensical. He can’t even think straight anymore. “I have to go. I’m sorry.”

He runs.

 

Scott stands in the middle of the room, blinking as Derek flees as swiftly as if he wore Stiles’ winged sandals. “Should I not have…did he not want me to do that?” he asks the tree, before realizing how pointless it is to talk to a tree. It’s undoubtedly loyal to Derek and probably hates him, now. More than it already did for that time he almost killed it. “I’m sorry,” he adds, touching the tip of a branch gently. “I shouldn’t have abandoned you. I’m glad Derek is taking good care of you, but I should have been there to give you to him myself.”

He paces the room, growing antsier by the second. Derek said that he’d come back – he’d _promised_ – but… No. No, Derek made him a promise, and the god of death never breaks his promises. Not when death is the greatest promise of all. Scott chews on his lip, looking around the room. There’s an impressive table with a map of the world, and Scott admires the cool gray mist spreading across the land. He doesn’t know what it means, though. After pacing the mostly empty room for several more – minutes? Hours? He doesn’t really understand how time works here – he decides to visit Cerberus. The hellhound likes him, at least, and Derek knows where to find him if – _when_ – he comes back.

Cerberus guards the gates, as well, and Scott tries not to think of how much easier it will be to leave from there when – _if_ – Derek decides to send him away for good.

He hurries out of the room, and doesn’t notice the tiny bud starting to grow from the branch that he’d touched.

Braeden doesn’t look surprised to see him when he approaches the shore, just smiles sadly and gestures for him to climb into the boat. “I have payment,” he says, reaching into his pocket. “You like pomegranates, right?”

Her eyes light up. “You have some?” she asks eagerly. “Where’d you get them?”

“Derek gave them to me,” he says, starting to untie the cloth. “I don’t have many, but you can have them-”

“Derek _gave_ them to you?” Braeden interrupts, staring at the torn cloth with wide eyes. Scott nods, and she places a hand over his, stilling him. “Then they’re yours and yours alone. I can’t accept those from you.”

“But-” He’s grateful, because he wants to keep the seeds with him forever, but he can’t just expect people to give him things when he has nothing to give in return. “I don’t have anything else.”

“You’ve done enough for us,” Braeden says. She nods at the boat. “Get in.”

They’re halfway across the river when he blurts, “Was it because I touched him?”

Braeden stares at Scott in such confusion that she actually stops rowing for a moment. She shakes herself and dips her oar back into the water. “What are you talking about?”

“Derek,” he says. “He left. I want to know what I did wrong. Was it because I-”

“Oh, no,” Braeden says with a chuckle. “No, Scott, it’s nothing like that. That’s not why he left.”

“So it wasn’t because of me?”

“Scott, I promise that it has nothing to do with – well,” Braeden says, trailing off awkwardly. “It’s not your fault, what happened,” she says instead.

“So it _was_ because of me,” Scott says, unable to keep the dejection from his voice.

“It’s not your fault,” Braeden repeats firmly. “Remember that, okay, Scott?”

“Okay,” he says uncertainly. He sits up straighter as they near the shore, where several souls wait with coins in hand. “What – there’s so many of them.” He cranes his neck to look over their heads. “Where’s Stiles?”

“He already left,” Braeden says neutrally.

“What’s going on?”

Braeden doesn’t answer, just climbs out of the boat and gestures for Scott to do the same. One of the souls brushes by him as they enter the boat, and for a fleeting moment he feels…hunger. He backs away, hand falling to his stomach. That’s…he’s never felt hunger before.

Braeden meets his eyes over the souls in her boat. “Remember what I said, Scott,” she says, and begins to row back across the river.

She said it’s not his fault, whatever _it_ is. Scott makes his way to the gates, rubbing his stomach absently. Hunger. It churns in his gut, clawing at his insides and making him dizzy. He pets Cerberus distractedly, trying to ignore how the hellhound’s barks pound into his head like a hammer. He doesn’t realize his knees have given out until he feels Cerberus carefully lift him in one of his mouths and carry him to the side of the road, leaning him against the wall as best as he can manage. The stone had felt so cool and comforting, before, but now it chills him down to his bones.

Cerberus curls around him protectively with an unhappy whine, nosing at his chest. It’ll pass, he knows it will, it’s just because the soul touched him, but he still feels like he’s being ripped apart from the inside out. Braeden said – she said it was – he can’t think, he can’t remember anything but Cerberus’ warmth and the faint scent of –

Pomegranates. He has food. He’s hungry, and he has food to eat, and Derek said not to eat them, but he’s so _hungry_. He unties the cloth with shaking fingers – shaking, why are they shaking – and picks up a seed, inhaling its sweet aroma. Just one, and then he won’t be so hungry, and he’ll be able to remember what Braeden had told him that was so important. He lifts it to his mouth, and his eyes slide shut.

_“Scott!”_

Stiles’ voice cuts through his ears, and Scott opens his eyes to see the god crouched in front of him, eyes wide with concern. “Stiles?”

“You fainted, and under any other circumstances I’d be laughing at you right now, but…” Stiles looks down at something in his hands. Scott blinks, shaking his head to reorient himself. He feels much better, now. “Scott, how many berries were there when you opened this?”

“They’re seeds, technically,” Scott says. He chuckles at Stiles’ unimpressed face, but sobers when he sees the panic at the back of his eyes. “Seven. There were seven.”

Stiles stares at him for a long moment, then sighs heavily, handing the cloth back to Scott. “Why do you have these in the first place?”

“Derek gave them to me,” Scott says, refolding the cloth and tucking it carefully into his pocket. He looks up to see Stiles staring at him as if he’d grown another head. “What?”

“He _gave_ them to you?” Scott nods. “Derek. King of the Underworld.” He nods again. “ _Derek_ gave-”

“Yes,” Scott says exasperatedly. “Why is that so hard to believe?”

“Derek doesn’t really do gifts,” Stiles says. “I mean, he doesn’t really have anyone to give them to in the first place.”

“He has the puppy,” Scott says, reaching back to pet Cerberus. Stiles rolls his eyes. “And the Fates.” Stiles somehow finds a way to roll his eyes even harder. “And he has me.”

Stiles stops mid-eye roll and nearly falls over. “What?”

“I’m his friend,” Scott says with a nod. “Well, I thought I was. Maybe. I think I screwed it up at the end.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Stiles says breezily. “He’s not very good at making friends. Probably wasn’t anything you did, anyway.” He stands and brushes off his tunic. “Well, now that I know you’re not gonna collapse on me, I better get going. Lots of souls in need of some guidance.”

Scott looks at the shore, eyes widening at the small crowd waiting for Braeden’s boat. “There’s so many of them.”

“Yeah, that’s the thing about mortals,” Stiles says with a grimace. “They, uh, they die pretty easily, it turns out.”

“It _turns out?_ ” He rubs his stomach. “Wait, I touched one of them. Why did I feel _hunger?_ ”

Stiles backs away. “Listen, don’t worry about it, okay, Scott. It’s just a little – don’t worry about it. I gotta go.”

“Stiles, wait-”

“Bye, Scotty!” Stiles calls, running away on his winged sandals.

Scott slumps. “No one ever tells me anything,” he tells Cerberus. Cerberus sniffs at him in agreement. “I just wish I understood. Why are there so many souls, now? And why are they _hungry?_ There’s no reason to be hungry, there’s plenty of-” He freezes, hand coming up to feel the cloth in his pocket. “Oh, no.”

There _was_ plenty of food. There was, when he helped his mother tend the crops. Just like his pomegranate tree had borne plenty of fruit, back when he still cared for it. But then he’d abandoned it, and it would have died if his mother hadn’t intervened. And now, now he’s abandoned the entire _earth_ …

Braeden’s words come back to him with sudden clarity. He sags against the wall, the cool stone cutting into his skin like an accusation. Braeden was wrong. She was so wrong. “This is my fault.”

 

* * *

 

Derek stands in the middle of the room, blinking at the tiny bud growing from the tip of a branch. It’s not that he’s never seen the pomegranate tree bud before, it’s just…the rest of the branches are already filled with ripe fruit. He shakes his head and turns away, looking for Scott. He hadn’t meant to be gone for so long, but even the Fates had been confused by the state of the earth. Maybe Scott had gotten tired of waiting, maybe he’d decided to leave after the way Derek abandoned him – _again_ – maybe…

A quiet sniffle echoes in his ears. He follows the cries – quiet, muted, desperately pushed down and hidden away – to the gates, where he finds Scott huddled in a ball on the floor, arms wrapped tight around his knees as his body shudders from near-silent sobs. “Scott?”

“This is my fault,” Scott chokes out. “All these souls, the earth dying, it’s my fault. If I hadn’t left, they’d still be alive.”

“No.” Derek sits down next to Scott. “No, it’s my fault. I’m the one who took you here in the first place.”

Scott shakes his head. “I could’ve left anytime I wanted. No one was forcing me to stay but me. I was being selfish. I was just…” He wipes angrily at his eyes. “I should’ve left. I should’ve left as soon as I found out.”

Derek looks at the gates, then back to Scott. “How come you didn’t?”

“You said you’d come back,” he says, voice small. “You promised, and the god of death never breaks his promises, so I waited.” His eyes dart up to meet Derek’s before flitting away. “I owe you that, at the very least.”

Derek lets out a hoarse laugh. “Scott, you don’t owe me a thing,” he says. He pulls Scott’s hand away from his knee, clasping it within his own. “I’m the one who owes you.”

“For what?” Scott asks, baffled.

He lifts Scott’s hand to his mouth and kisses it gently. “For everything.”

Scott exhales shakily. “I have to go,” he says unhappily, and doesn’t move at all.

Derek nods. He doesn’t want Scott to leave, he knows he’ll never see him again once he’s on the other side of the gates, but he’s caused enough damage with his selfish desires. He has to let him go. He helps Scott to his feet and leads him to the gates. Scott takes a deep breath and steps through, their joined arms stretching until he has to let go.

Instead, Scott squeezes his hand even tighter and turns back to Derek. “When we met,” he says. “Why did you say that you stole me?”

Derek’s throat closes. Scott waits patiently, grip tight and gaze inscrutable. He takes a deep breath. “Because-”

_“Scott!”_

Scott jerks in surprise, hand falling away from Derek’s as they turn to see Stiles dash up to them. “Scott,” Stiles pants, “I didn’t tell, I swear, it wasn’t me-”

“ _What_ wasn’t you?” Scott asks. “Stiles, what’s going on?”

“I came to warn you,” Stiles gasps. He braces his hands on his knees, chest heaving. “She’s coming.”

“My _mom?_ ” Scott asks, eyes wide.

Stiles shakes his head. “Worse.”

Scott frowns. “Who’s worse than my mom?”

Thunder crackles overhead, and Derek feels himself fill with dread. “My sister.”

Stiles straightens, still panting. “I’m sorry, Scott,” he says, and then lightning charges down from the sky and blows them back into the Underworld. When Derek blinks the brightness from his eyes, the queen of the gods stands just inside the gate.

“Dear brother,” Laura says. “This has gotten ridiculous.”

(“Yes,” Stiles mutters to Scott, “The dramatics _do_ run in the family.”)

“Ridiculous?” Derek repeats. “You’re calling the death of the earth and countless mortals _ridiculous?_ ”

“The earth’s not dead, yet,” Laura says airily. “That’s why I’m here, before things get worse. Melissa is _not_ happy with you.”

Stiles coughs.

“Or with any of us,” Laura adds. She glares at Stiles, then grumbles, “Myself included.”

“That’s very humble of you,” Derek deadpans.

“I know!” Laura nods earnestly. “And I have come to set things right. So, Derek,” She clears her throat importantly, “As is my right as queen of the gods, I command you to relinquish your claim to the god, Scott.”

“Claim?” Scott repeats quizzically.

“And Scott,” Laura continues, “I hereby free you from the Underworld.” She claps her hands. “Well! Now that that’s dealt with, Stiles, go take him home.”

“Wait,” Scott says, stepping forward. “Why was any of this necessary? I was just about to leave. And what was that about a _claim?_ ”

“You know, when he snatched you off the face of the earth and kept you from leaving,” Laura says. “That sounds pretty claiming to me.”

“He didn’t keep me from leaving. I wanted to stay.”

“It’s okay, Scott.” Laura drapes what she probably thinks is a comforting arm around Scott’s shoulders; it mostly just reminds Derek of when she used to hold him in a headlock when they were younger. “You’re free, now. You don’t have to be nice to him if you don’t want to.”

Scott blinks. “I wasn’t ever _not_ free.”

“People who aren’t free tend to say that,” Laura says, nodding knowingly. Scott exchanges glances with Stiles. “Well, say whatever goodbyes you want, if you want, I guess. Considering how badly Melissa reacted _this_ time, you’ll never be allowed anywhere near this place ever again.” She leans closer, hands clasped. “But if you could refrain from employing physical violence, that would be great. As gods of Olympus, we frown on that sort of behavior if your name isn’t Jackson.”

“Wait, what?”

“I mean, it’s true, no one really likes him, but he just can’t help picking fights with everyone so we’ve kind of given up on that.”

“No, what, I don’t care about that,” Scott says. “What did you mean, I won’t be _allowed_ back here? Says who?”

“Says your mom. And me. As queen of the gods, I’m going to have to exercise my right to ban the two of you from ever seeing each other again.” Laura wrinkles her nose. “Did you see how many mortals died? That was bad. We probably shouldn’t do that again.”

“Scott,” Stiles says gently. “You knew this was going to happen. You knew your mom wasn’t going to let you come back.”

“I know, but…” Scott sighs, glancing at Derek. Derek ducks his head and resolutely doesn’t meet his eyes. “Don’t I get a say in any of this?”

Stiles pats his back. “We’re gods, but even we aren’t exempt from our rules.”

“Oh, crap, the rules!” Laura yells, so loudly that even Cerberus gets a little spooked. “I totally forgot. Stiles, why didn’t you remind me?”

“I just-”

“Scott,” Laura says, barreling over Stiles’ words, “I need you to think very carefully. Did you eat anything while you were down here?”

Scott blinks. “What? Why does that matter?”

“It just does.” Laura shrugs. “So, did you?”

“And what happens if I did?” Scott demands, crossing his arms. “Is there some other crazy loophole that no one’s gonna tell me about and I won’t get a say in, either?”

Stiles moves closer to him. “Scott, calm down, okay? It’s just a formality.”

“Well, I want to know why it’s important.”

Laura sighs long-sufferingly. “Only those who live in the Underworld may eat its food. If you ate something here, you have to stay.”

Derek watches the color drain from Scott’s skin. “Oh,” he says softly. “But – the earth. What happens to it if I don’t go back?”

“All of the gods must obey the rules,” Laura says. “Melissa won’t be happy about it, but she’ll have to allow the earth to grow again.” She blinks. “Well, for the most part. I kind of like this snow thing. Makes fun flurries and these cool flakey thingies – don’t worry about it,” she adds when she sees the confused look on Scott’s face.

Scott sighs in relief. “Okay,” he says. “Thank you for telling me. I…” He pauses, looking towards Derek. “I’m sorry, Derek.”

His head shoots up. “What?”

“I ate the pomegranate seeds. The ones you gave me.”

Derek’s stomach drops. “Scott-” he begins, but Laura talks over him. “How many?” she asks promptly. “How did it happen?”

Scott looks taken aback. “Uh, they’re really tiny seeds,” he says. “Does it really matter how many…” He subsides under Laura’s impassive stare. “Uh, six. I kept one,” he adds desperately to Derek. “Like you wanted me to.”

“It was the hunger,” Stiles cuts in, glancing sidelong at Scott. “When he touched one of the souls. I saw it happen. I tried to stop him, but he couldn’t hear me, and by the time I got to him…” He presses his lips together. “It was already too late.”

“No,” Derek says. “No, Scott, I – Laura, you have to let him go.”

“All of the gods must obey the rules,” Laura says firmly. “Scott will stay here one month for every seed that he ate.” She steps closer, lowering her head next to Derek’s. “This is what you wanted, isn’t it?”

“No!” he exclaims. “I never wanted this. I wanted…” He sighs. “I don’t know what I wanted.”

Laura backs away, confusion evident on her face. “We’ll give you some privacy before Stiles takes Scott home,” she says awkwardly, and herds Stiles to the other side of the gate.

“I’m sorry,” Derek says as soon as Scott steps closer. “Scott, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean-”

“Hey, it’s okay,” Scott says, smiling bravely. “We get to see each other again, right? That’s what matters.”

“I didn’t want to _force_ you to come back,” he says helplessly. “This is my fault. If I hadn’t given you those seeds-”

“Hey, you didn’t force me to eat them,” Scott says. “Actually, you kind of told me not to eat them. Besides, I want to come back.” He steps closer, winding their hands together. “I want to see you again.”

Derek can’t help but light up inside at the words, can’t help the spark of hope that flares in his chest. But, but, “But get married?” he asks. “You want the god of death as your husband?”

Scott blinks, stepping back (he doesn’t let go of Derek’s hands, though, and Derek tries not to clutch them even tighter). “Married?” he repeats, eyes wide. “When did that happen?”

“Crap, did I forget to mention that part?” Laura says, barreling in before Derek can answer. “You have to stay, but you’re still a god, so consort of the king is kind of the only open job for your rank.” She taps her chin. “Well, I guess I could kick someone down to Tartarus if you want-”

“No, that’s okay!” Scott says quickly. “You don’t have to do that. I appreciate it.”

“Oh, good, I didn’t want to have to deal with that extra paperwork,” Laura says. She beams at them until Derek coughs. “Laura,” he says sternly.

“Yes, dear?”

“Can we get back to our _private_ conversation?”

“Right.”

Scott huffs a laugh. “I’m starting to understand why Mom didn’t want me around Olympus,” he tells Derek.

“That is-” Laura begins loudly, then snaps her mouth shut and turns away, muttering about privacy.

Scott turns back to Derek with a smile that strains at the edges. “So,” he says carefully. “Married.” Derek nods at the floor, bracing himself for Scott’s rejection. This will be the last straw for him, he’ll never accept this. Instead, he feels Scott’s fingers under his chin, tilting his head up to meet his eyes. “Is that okay with you?” he asks.

Derek blinks. “Is that okay with _you?_ ”

“Well, I asked you first!”

(“Oh, for the love of me,” Laura says faintly. “Is this seriously happening?”)

Derek sighs. “I don’t want you to be forced into anything you don’t want,” he says. “It doesn’t matter what I want.”

“It does, though,” Scott says, frowning at him. “What you want matters, Derek.”

“What you want matters, too,” he says. “Matters more, even. You deserve to have a say in your own life.” And I took that away from you, he should add, but the words stick in his throat. Scott beams at him, and he feels sick.

“I do,” he says, nodding firmly. “We’ll figure this out together, okay?”

I’m sorry, he tries to say, but somehow, “I love you,” comes out instead. He curses himself internally and tries to resist the urge to run away.

Scott blinks, face flushing. “Uh,” he squeaks. “Thank you?” Derek hears the faint slap of Stiles hitting his own face. “I, uh, um, uh-”

“Wow, we really need to get going!” Laura yells, swooping in between them. “We’ll see you in six months, Derek, okay? Scott, let’s get you home. Stiles! Come on!” Derek watches Laura pull Scott away from him towards Stiles, and he clenches his hands at his sides and bites down on his tongue to keep from saying anything else. Stiles waves at Derek, eyebrows still climbing up his forehead, and starts to lead Scott through the gate.

“Wait!” Scott lets go of Stiles’ hand and runs back to Derek. He automatically reaches out to catch Scott as he skids into him, and Scott braces against his shoulders before leaning up and kissing him firmly. “I-” he says, biting his lip, then turns and runs back to Stiles.

“Wow,” Laura mutters to Derek, watching the two whisper urgently to each other as they walk through the gate. “You sure about this?”

“No,” he says faintly.

Laura hums consideringly. “It must get exhausting, being so unconfident all the time.” She cackles when Derek glares at her. “Okay, I gotta go save the world. See you around, brother dear!”

“Laura-” he begins, but a lightning bolt crackles down in front of him, and when he blinks away the brightness, his sister is gone. He sighs and watches Scott slowly follow Stiles into the horizon. “Don’t look back,” he mutters. “Please don’t look back.”

As if hearing his words, Scott turns one last time and flashes Derek a smile as gentle as the end of a sunset before disappearing from sight. Derek stays rooted to the spot, heart pounding and face burning with the faint taste of dewdrops on his lips. He exhales shakily, turning to his faithful hellhound. “What have I done?”

Cerberus whines.


	3. Part II

Mom cries when she sees him.

Scott expects anger, or lecturing, or disappointment. He expects her to hold him by the shoulders, forbid him from ever leaving again, and tell him that this is why he needs to trust her judgment. But she gathers him tight in her arms and cries, and the guilt wells up in Scott so deeply he feels like he’s drowning in it. And when her sobs fade, when she pulls away and takes a deep breath, all she says is, “We have work to do.”

That’s it.

It’s true, though. Apologies and explanations have to wait until the earth is alive and warm again, so he swallows down the tears that sting his own eyes and follows her. They have work to do.

The mortals aren’t even angry with them (with him). They fall over themselves in gratitude, worshipping at their altars and singing their praises. Scott coaxes a field of barley back to life and watches a farmer sink to his knees, weeping with joy. Songs are created in their name, and they’re given more offerings than Scott has ever seen.

The gods celebrate his return and restoration of the earth. They praise his bravery in the face of the Underworld, his kind and forgiving heart. They tell him that he is strong, and smart, and selfless. They spread new songs amongst the mortals, and none of them tell the story of how Scott left them for the Underworld and plunged them into an endless winter; rather, they tell the story of how he fought his way out to bring them back spring.

Scott is afforded none of the blame and all of the credit, and he doesn’t understand why.

He doesn’t understand. Well, some things never change.

“I’m sorry,” he tells Mom, once the earth is as alive as before and they have time to breathe again.

“It’s not your fault, Scott,” she says, just like all the other gods have told him during their short visits. But rather than blaming Derek, she simply says, “It’s mine.”

His head jerks up. “Mom?”

“What happened to the earth was my fault,” she says. “I was selfish. I thought only of myself. I didn’t give the earth the sympathy it deserves; I used it to wage a war.”

“Mom.” He steps across the soil, mindful of the young shoots, and takes her hands. “You wouldn’t have even been put in that situation if I hadn’t left. I just – I wasn’t thinking. I ignored my responsibilities. _I_ was being selfish. I put you in that situation.”

“And I’m much older and supposedly wiser than you,” Mom says, smiling self-deprecatingly. “Scott, I lived through a war long before you were born. I should know better. And I don’t want you to blame yourself for something that was completely out of your hands. I made a choice, and it was the wrong one. You didn’t make me do that.” Scott opens his mouth, but she continues with a shake of her head. “And even if you had – which you hadn’t – but even if you had, that would still be my choice to own.”

He looks down, swinging their hands like he used to when he was young. “But my actions forced your hand.”

“Sweetheart, look at me.” He meets her gaze, as warm and comforting as a summer sunset. “We’re gods. We are more than just ourselves. Our hands cannot be forced. We can only make choices that are ours and ours alone.” She squeezes his hands firmly. “And the choices I made were mine, just as the choices you made were yours.”

“What happened to the earth isn’t my fault,” Scott says, and Mom nods gently. “But what happened with Derek _is_ my fault.”

“Yes.” She lets go of one hand to lead Scott out of the field. Soft grass brushes his legs, and he suddenly misses the feeling of heavy fabric covering his ankles. “It isn’t your fault that everyone blames him instead of you; people will believe what they want to believe.”

“But you don’t believe that.” He doesn’t phrase it as a question, not quite, but he has to be sure. It’s not – Derek doesn’t deserve it, what they say about him now.

“I know my son better than most,” Mom says with a wry smile. “But for most, it’s easier to blame the god of death. It’s not malicious; it’s just an acceptance of inevitability. Even the gods fall into that mortal way of thinking.” She stops in front of a pomegranate tree, admiring the flowers in full bloom. “I don’t know the full story, and I don’t expect you to tell me. Stiles has told me six different versions so far, and I suspect none of them are true.” Scott snorts. “But I do know that you made choices when you were in Derek’s realm, and I do know that you need to follow them through to whatever end.”

He nods. “I need to make things right.”

“That’s all that we can strive for,” she says. “I’m proud of you, Scott.”

He chuckles. “Mom, I disappeared for months and came back accidentally betrothed.”

She raises an eyebrow. “And just how ‘accidental’ was this betrothal?” Scott bites his lip guiltily, but she says, “You know, Derek made his own choices as much as you did.”

Choices. Following through. And he can’t help his shiver of excitement whenever he says the word out loud. _Betrothed_. It settles in his chest like a promise, and the god of death never breaks his promises. “I know. I just wish I knew what they were.” He sighs, looking up through the tree’s branches. “How come you never told me that you gave him that pomegranate tree I made?”

“You never asked.”

“Oh.” He feels stupid, now. “I thought it might’ve been because of the whole, y’know, Underworld thing.”

“Scott, I didn’t want you to go to the Underworld because I didn’t think you’d understand. Look at where I’ve been keeping you.” She gestures at the endless fields around them, teeming with life. “All you’ve ever known is life. How could I expect you to understand death?”

“Death is part of life,” Scott says, remembering what Isaac had told him. “And it happens whether you understand it or not.”

Mom smiles. “I underestimated you,” she says. “I know you’re not as old as I am, but I tend to forget that you’re not as young as you used to be.” She nods to herself. “I’ve been holding you back.”

“No, you haven’t,” he begins, but she shakes her head. “I have,” she says firmly. “I can admit that about myself. Here I am, telling you about the importance of owning up to your choices, and I don’t even let you make any.”

“Well, I’ll be making plenty of them, now,” he says, flashing her a smile. He hesitates before asking, “Are you okay with it? Me going back to Underworld?”

“Well, you have to go whether I like it or not,” Mom says. “So it’s better that I accept it.”

“Yeah, but.” He rubs the back of his neck. “If I didn’t have to. If I just went back because I wanted to. Would you let – would that be okay with you?”

“I think we’re beyond me _letting_ you do anything, now,” she says. She thinks for a moment. “Before? No, I wouldn’t have been okay with it. But knowing what I know now…” She smiles. “As long as it’s truly what you want, then I’m happy.”

He smiles, letting out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “Thanks, Mom.”

She pulls him in for a hug, kissing the top of his head. “I love you, Scott.”

“I love you, too, Mom.”

She squeezes him one last time, then pulls back with a sigh. “Let’s go.” They leave the field slowly, hand in hand and side by side.

 

“I still think you’re overreacting,” Isaac says.

Derek doesn’t even bother lifting his head from his hands to glare at him. “I stole a god, kept him here long enough to cause mass famine and death, and before I let him go, I gave him food from the Underworld so now he’s stuck here for half the year _married_ to me. How am I overreacting?”

“You’re overreacting because what you’re saying isn’t exactly true,” Braeden says. “Scott actually wanted to stay here, and I think both of you _and_ Melissa all blame yourselves for the winter, and Scott ate the pomegranate seeds all on his own. And you’re marrying him because it would be insulting to his rank as a god if he was your subject in the Underworld. A ruler’s consort is an honor.”

Consort to the ruler of the sky or the sea, maybe. But to the ruler of the dead? Not so much. And besides, “It’s an honor that he didn’t want, and he definitely didn’t ask for,” Derek says. “And I still stole him in the first place.”

“You keep using that word,” Isaac muses. “I do not think it means what you think it means.”

Derek squints at him. “…What is _that_ supposed to mean?”

“Give it time,” Isaac says, and hands Braden another section of pomegranate. “Why do you have so many of these, by the way?” he asks, wiggling his own half.

“The tree won’t stop budding,” Derek mutters. “I don’t know why.”

“I’m just shooting in the dark, here,” Braeden says, “but I’m guessing it’s probably because of Scott. Y’know, god of the harvest, creator of the pomegranate. Just my crazy theory.”

“His powers don’t work down here,” Derek says. “He makes things grow. Nothing actually grows here.”

“Well, your pomegranates do,” Isaac says around a mouthful of seeds. “These taste sweeter. Braeden, do these taste sweeter to you?”

“Yeah, they’re not as bitter,” Braeden says, nodding. She grins at Derek. “Maybe that means something. Maybe Scott makes things better down here, too.”

“Or Scott broke your weird tree,” Isaac adds. Braeden smacks him upside the head.

He does, though. Derek saw the changes in the souls when Scott was around, how they stood a little straighter. The field winds are gentler, and the rivers bubble when he walks along them, sometimes, as if in laughter. Erica hums when she spins, songs that Derek has never heard before, and Boyd smiles more. Isaac had been so quiet before, huddled in the corner with his shears whenever Derek came around, but now he jokes with him and steals his pomegranates.

Braeden actually talks to him, now. She laughs _with_ him instead of at him. That’s probably the biggest change of all. “He does make things better here,” Derek says softly. “He did.”

“He _will_ ,” Isaac says happily. “Look how much he did when he was just a tourist; imagine what he’ll do when he’s our king.”

Derek’s heart flutters at the last word; he quashes it ruthlessly. “When he’s trapped here,” he corrects. “Because of me.”

“He didn’t seem to mind too much,” Braeden says. “I mean, he kept worrying you were going to send him away, and people don’t tend to worry about that if they want to leave.”

“There’s a difference between choosing to stay and _having_ to stay,” Derek says. He sighs, handing Isaac his last pomegranate. There were already more growing on the tree when he’d left, anyway. “I took that choice away from him.”

“He might’ve chosen to stay, anyway.”

“Well, we’ll never know, will we?” Derek says irritably. “It’s too late for that.”

“I’ll ever know,” Isaac says enigmatically, then frowns. “Wow, that sentence didn’t work out like I thought it would.” Braeden snorts. “But seriously, Derek. What I _do_ know is that Scott spent his whole time here trying to find excuses to stay longer. He even got Stiles of the all gods to help him. _Stiles_ , Derek.”

“Stiles helped Scott because he’s his friend,” Derek says. “I don’t get what your point is.”

“Well, that doesn’t surprise me,” Isaac sighs. “The concept of friendship is completely lost on you.”

“I have friends!”

Braeden and Isaac glance at each other. “I’m flattered, Derek,” Isaac says, “But I’m not sure if a Fate really counts as a friend.”

“We’re not friends,” Braeden adds quickly. “I only took this job because it was either this or being Laura’s cupbearer.” She shudders. “I have heard _stories_ about that position. No, thank you.”

“Oh, yeah,” Isaac says, scratching his chin. “Whatever happened to that guy?”

Braeden squints at him. “Aren’t you a Fate?” Derek asks.

“Hey, if I don’t cut their thread, I don’t care.”

“I think Laura hung him up in the sky or something,” Derek says. “I’ve learned not to question when she does these things. Do you know how many nieces and-”

_“We know,”_ they drone in unison. “Oh, Laura, always falling in love,” Isaac sighs.

“Love, is that what we’re calling it, now?” Braeden asks. They share a chuckle, frowning when Derek doesn’t join in. “Derek?”

“I told Scott I loved him.”

“Actually, you sort of screamed at him,” Isaac says. “It was a bit frightening.”

“What – I didn’t _scream_ ,” Derek says. Isaac busies himself with plucking out more pomegranate seeds, lips pressed together in mirth. “I didn’t scream,” he tells Braeden.

“Okay,” Braeden says, not even trying to sound like she believes him. “So what’s bothering you about it?”

“I shouldn’t have told him.”

“Nope, try again,” Isaac says, cramming a handful of seeds into his mouth. “That’s not it at all.”

Derek sighs, chin dropping to his chest. “He didn’t say it back,” he mumbles.

“Well, it kind of took him by surprise, right?” Braeden says. “He might’ve just been thrown off by the sc…the _not_ screaming,” she corrects quickly.

“Or he doesn’t feel that way about me.” He rolls his shoulders, tearing a pomegranate peel to shreds. “I don’t blame him.”

Isaac sighs long-sufferingly at Braeden. “Aaaand we’ve come full circle.”

“What are you even talking about,” Derek says halfheartedly.

“You’re overreacting,” Braeden says. “Again.”

He shakes his head tiredly. He isn’t overreacting. He’s being realistic. Scott doesn’t…how could he. Why _would_ he.

 

* * *

 

Lydia sits down next to Scott in the sand, smoothing her skirt primly. “A little birdie told me you’re all kinds of confused over a certain god.”

Scott sighs. “Does that birdie happen to have wings on his feet and on his head and his name rhymes with Biles?”

“Actually, I meant Allison’s pet owl.”

“Oh.” He blinks. “Sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize for that,” Lydia says dismissively. “But you _do_ need to apologize for not coming to talk to me about this! Love is my area of expertise, Scott, and I am frankly insulted that you didn’t think to ask me.”

“Well, I was kind of busy making sure the earth didn’t die for a while, there.”

“Excuses.” She waves a hand dismissively. “Well, I’m here, now. What’s bothering you?”

“Nothing!” The unimpressed stare she levels at him is even more impressive than Stiles’. “I mean, it’s just that I left things on a kind of awkward note, and…”

“Yeah, that tends to happen when someone tells you they love you, and you respond with, ‘thank you.’”

Scott flops onto his back with a groan, covering his face with his hands. Lydia yelps as she gets sprayed with sand. “I didn’t mean to,” he mumbles. “I just…panicked.”

“Yeah, that was patently obvious.” She pets his hair. “It’s okay, we can totally salvage this. What happened next?”

He peeks at her over the tips of his fingers. “I kissed him.”

“Oh, excellent!” Lydia says, smiling happily.

“And then I ran away.”

Her smile fades into a grimace. “Less excellent.”

He covers his face again. “I should’ve said it back, right? That’s what you’re supposed to do?”

“Well, you don’t have to _lie_ to them,” Lydia says with a roll of her eyes. “If you don’t feel that way about them, you probably shouldn’t say it back. Saves extra heartache down the line.”

“But I don’t _not_ feel that way about him.”

Lydia blinks. “So…you _do_ feel that way?”

“I don’t know!”

“Oh, for the love of me,” Lydia mutters. She flops onto her back next to him and somehow makes it look graceful. Scott waits for her to continue talking, but she just folds her hands over her belly with a soft sigh. They listen to the gentle crashing of the waves in silence.

“I’d never really thought about it before,” he says eventually. “I just…there’s something about him, you know? He cares so much about what he does, and he’s so gentle, and the way his eyes light up when he smiles at you…I dunno, he just makes me feel…” He trails off, searching for the right word, then gives up. “ _Good_.”

“Hm,” Lydia says thoughtfully. “Go on.”

“I don’t know. It was just so intense.”

“Heady.”

“Yeah,” he says, nodding fervently. “Like I couldn’t stand not being around him. Like I would’ve done anything to stay.”

“And now?” she asks. She rolls onto her stomach and props herself up on her elbows to peer down at him. “Now that you’re not caught up in it anymore, and now that you _have_ to stay?”

Scott sighs, tapping a finger against his chest. “I love it here,” he says. “I love the sun, and the smell of flowers and trees in the air, and I love traveling all over the earth and watching it grow.” Kira’s been bringing him to towns and villages further and further from his mother’s home; he’s excited to see where she decides to take him, next. But still, in spite of it all, “But I can’t wait to go back.”

“Back to the Underworld, or back to him?”

“Both.” He shrugs. “Same thing, isn’t it?”

“No,” Lydia says. “It really isn’t. You can love one and just tolerate the other for its sake.”

“But I love both,” Scott says. “I-” He bolts upright, staring wide-eyed at Lydia. “Lydia. I love both. I love the Underworld, and Derek. I love…” He ducks his head as a smile spreads across his face. “I love Derek. Lydia, I love Derek.”

“And there you have it,” Lydia says, patting his arm smugly. “How does it feel?”

“It feels like…” He falls back onto the sand again, covering his face as he giggles helplessly. “I don’t even _know_.” He loves _Derek_. He _loves_ Derek, and Derek loves – “Oh, no.”

Lydia’s smile vanishes. “Oh, no?” she demands. “What do you mean, _oh, no?_ ”

“I never told him I love him.”

She relaxes, lounging back down on one elbow. “Oh, is that all?”

“What do _you_ mean, is that all?” He boggles at her. “Lydia, Derek doesn’t know I love him!”

“I’m sure he knows, in his own special way.” Lydia says. “’Cause when you know, you know…you know.”

“Lydia, this is _Derek_.”

She purses her lips. “Okay, you’ve got a point. But so what? Just tell him at the wedding.” She blinks. “Oh, wait. The wedding. Scott, we need to talk about the wedding.”

“But that’s not for months! Derek probably thinks…” He blinks. “Actually, I have no idea what he thinks. I don’t understand half of the stuff that goes through his head. I don’t even understand half of the stuff that’s going through _my_ head.”

“Well, lesson one about love, Scott: it happens whether you understand it or not,” Lydia says flippantly. Scott blinks, remembering what Isaac had told him about death. “Now, more importantly, the wedding.”

“D’you think I could send a message to the Fates?” Scott says. “Nah, they wouldn’t…”

“Scott!” Lydia snaps her fingers in front of his face. “The wedding. Focus.”

“Sure, yeah, what about it?” he asks distractedly. Stiles goes to the Underworld all the time, he could ask Stiles to…but would Derek even believe Stiles, is the real question. Probably not. Stiles is known for his trickery, after all. Lydia looks at him expectantly, and he realizes that he’s just missed something important. “Uh, pardon?”

“Ridiculous,” she mutters under her breath. “I said, did your mother ever tell you about the birds and the bees?”

“Lydia,” Scott scoffs, “I know all about the birds and the bees. The birds build their nests in the trees and eat the bugs that eat the crops, and the bees build their hives in the trees and produce sweet honey for themselves and others.”

Lydia stares at him for a long moment, lips pressed tightly together. “Are you serious.”

“It’s very important for me to know and understand these creatures,” Scott says, nodding firmly. “Because, most importantly to me as a god of the harvest, bees and some birds pollinate…” He trails off, sitting up. Lydia nods eagerly. “…flowers. Lydia, you’re a genius! They pollinate flowers!”

Lydia nods less eagerly. “Yes, Scott,” she says, brow arched in confusion. “They _pollinate_ flowers, which is crucial for _reproduction_.”

“Yeah, flower reproduction, it’s very important for their continued survival,” Scott says absently. “People send each other flowers as tokens of their love, right?”

Lydia frowns. “Scott,” she says, sounding incredibly put-out, “Are you even listening to me right now?”

“Yes, absolutely,” he says, nodding eagerly. “Flowers, did I get that right?”

“Yes, that’s right,” she sighs. “Now, to get back to-”

“I know flowers better than anyone,” he mutters to himself. “I can send – no, I can’t send him just _any_ flower. I can make-” He leaps to his feet. “Thanks, Lydia! I gotta go!”

“You will _not_ ,” Lydia snaps, yanking Scott back into the sand. “You are going to sit _right here_ , and you are not allowed to leave until I am satisfied that you understand everything I teach you about sexual intercourse.”

He blinks. “Come again?”

“Easy, tiger, gotta walk before you run,” she says, smirking. “We’ll get to that later.”

“Get to _what_ later?”

Lydia sighs. “Starting with crawling, then.”

 

Derek looks up from his map of the world and groans. “What are you doing here?”

“Really, Derek?” Cora says as she strolls into the room. “That’s how you’re going to greet your only sister?”

“You’re not my only sister.”

“Details.” She tosses her hair, droplets of water flying from the tips to smack Derek in the face. “I hear congratulations are in order.”

“Not congratulations,” Derek grumbles. “Besides, you’re about three-and-a-half months late.”

“Three-and-a-half months, huh?” Cora says. “That’s awfully precise for a god who lives in a place with no concept of time.” She smirks. “You haven’t been keeping track, have you? Counting the days until your beloved returns?”

“He’s not my-” Derek protests, then sighs. “He’s not mine.”

Cora twists her mouth. “Well, that’s awkward. I don’t know if you’re aware of this, Derek, but you’re going to be marrying him soon.” Derek rolls his eyes and turns away, busying himself with inspecting the pomegranate tree. “But seriously. He seems really excited about it.”

“You talked to him?” Derek asks, and then curses himself for how eager he sounds.

“Yeah, all the time,” Cora says. “He’s been hanging out with the gods a lot. I’m actually gonna miss him seeing him around, I think.”

Derek’s’ jaw tightens. “Sorry,” he says stiffly.

“Oh, come on, I didn’t mean it like that,” Cora says, sighing in exasperation. “I just meant it’s been nice getting to know him now that Melissa doesn’t keep him squirreled away. And I don’t know about the other gods, Derek, but when he’s around me, he does not _shut up_ about you.”

He freezes with a hand curled around a pomegranate, glancing at Cora out of the corner of his eye. “Really?”

“Really. If I had a drop of water for every time he asked me a new question about you, I could build a whole new lake by now.” She shifts guiltily, or as close to guiltily as Cora can get. “I, uh, may have told him your favorite color was pink as a joke, and I think he believed me.”

He turns back to his sister. “Why would Scott care about my favorite color?”

Cora shrugs. “He’s a weird kid; I’m sure he has his reasons. Seemed like it was really important to him. I hope you don’t mind pink.”

“I could like pink.” He doesn’t actually have a favorite color – there isn’t much need for color in the Underworld, where everything is shade and shadow – but if Scott wants it to be pink, then it could be pink.

“Of course you could,” Cora says, watching him in amusement. “You’d do anything for Scott, wouldn’t you?”

“Of course I would,” he says automatically. He blinks, looking away from her incriminating gaze. “I owe him that much, after everything I’ve done to him.”

“You haven’t-”

“I know what they say about me now, Cora,” he says. “It’s fair. I deserve it.”

She frowns. “You don’t, though. Scott told me-”

“How I stole him from the earth?” Derek demands, whirling on her. “How I gave him the seeds that trapped him here?”

Cora doesn’t flinch. “He told me how you caught him when he fell,” she says calmly. “You can go ahead and get caught up in your self-loathing, but that’s how Scott sees it. He fell, and you caught him.”

“And the pomegranates?”

“He doesn’t like to talk about the seeds,” Cora admits. “It makes him uncomfortable, I think.” He knew it. Scott doesn’t want to stay, Scott doesn’t want to be trapped here, Scott doesn’t want him – “But he talks about your tree all the time,” she adds quickly. “And he carries that scrap of cloth you gave him everywhere. I think it’s kind of weird, but it means a lot to him, I guess.” She shrugs. “He’s only ever been grateful for what you’ve done for him. _For_ him, Derek, not _to_ him. He’s a god, not a child. Stop treating him like a passive player.”

“Of course he isn’t passive,” Derek says angrily. “That’s not what I mean at all. For the love of you, do you know how much he’s done for this place?”

“Do you?” Cora counters. “Boyd told me you haven’t been to Elysium lately.”

His eyebrows shoot up in confusion. “You talk to Boyd now?”

“Yeah, since you started getting even gloomier and doomier than usual,” Cora says. “He’s a funny guy.”

“He’s _funny?_ ”

“Wow, you really do need more friends,” Cora mutters. “C’mon, I’ll show you what I’m talking about. It’s pretty weird that I’m showing you around your own kingdom, but, whatever.”

“I know how to get there,” Derek protests as Cora drags him along by the hand. “There just hasn’t been any reason to go there lately, no new souls to-” He completely forgets his train of thought as Cora stops just inside the Elysian Fields. He stares, rubs his eyes, and stares some more. “What happened?”

The fields are covered in flowers. They’re only pale shades of their earthly counterparts, but – they’re _there_. They’re growing, and blooming, and _thriving_. He finds himself reaching towards a bud with a shaking hand, but pulls back before he touches it. “It’s great, right?” Cora says, grinning at him. “You can touch it, Derek. I’m pretty sure you can’t make something drop dead when it’s already, you know, dead.”

He strokes the bud carefully with the tip of his finger. It doesn’t wither, and it doesn’t bloom. It just sways slightly in place from the weight of his finger. “Boyd said they’re popping up in the Asphodel Meadows, too,” Cora continues. “Not as much, yet – I guess Elysium gets all the pretty stuff first. But flowers are growing here, now. You get what that means, right, Derek?”

“That flowers die during the winter that I caused?” Derek says. He can’t look away from the budding flowers. They’re _growing_. He shouldn’t be happy that they die, now, but – but it’s another comfort from the world of the living that the souls can have.

It’s another comfort that Scott can have from home, when he’s trapped here.

“That’s not what I meant,” Cora says. “I mean, it’s true, but what I meant was – Derek, could you at least look at me when I’m talking? The flowers will still be there when you come back.”

“Sorry.” He tears his gaze away from the flowers and stands next to his sister. She’s right. They’ll still be there. They’ll _always_ be there. “What were you saying?”

“Scott’s a god of the harvest, right?” Cora says. “He’s all about flowers, and growing, and all that stuff. And there’s flowers growing here in the Underworld, now.” She smiles. “You see what I’m getting at?”

Derek’s breath catches in his throat. He turns back to the fields, remembering what Scott had said, so unhappily, the last time he was here. “He has a place here.”

 

* * *

 

Scott dusts his hands off with a job well done. The mortals love the new flower, especially when he shows them how it can grow in nearly any soil. It isn’t the prettiest flower he’s ever made, but it’s striking, and it’s functional. The mortals learn to roast the roots or use them to make bread, and even the flowers taste sweet.

They understand its purpose when he tells them the flower’s name. The asphodel, for the fields in the Underworld where the everyman would come to stay. Their eternal resting place, for most of them. They bow in gratitude and plant the flowers near the graves, to send their nourishment to their loved ones in the Underworld.

Derek sees the value of every soul that passes into his realm, and he’d always spoken so kindly of those who resided in the Asphodel Meadows. Scott hopes that he understands, when he sees the new flower. He reaches automatically for the folded cloth in his pocket. It’s silly that he finds comfort in a small piece of torn fabric, but it’s Derek’s, and Derek had given it to him, and –

It isn’t there. His pocket is empty. He must have gotten so excited about the asphodel that he’d forgotten it in his mother’s house. He runs as quickly as he can and bursts through the door with heaving breaths, only to find Mom waiting just inside the doorway with the cloth cupped in her hands. “Mom, I can explain-”

“I already know, Scott.”

He freezes. “You know?”

“I know you didn’t eat the seeds,” Mom says. She smiles wryly. “I’m your mother, Scott; it’s my job to know the things about you that matter the most. And it became pretty obvious when Stiles couldn’t give me a straight answer.”

He tries to swallow past the lump in his throat. “Does anyone else-”

“It wouldn’t even cross Laura’s mind that a god could lie to her,” Mom says, handing the packet back to him. “We’re the only ones who know, aside from Stiles and Derek.”

Scott stares at the cloth in his hands, and the seven untouched pomegranate seeds nestled inside. They’re even brighter than the ones that grow on earth, suffused with the same ethereal glow that Derek seems to have. “Derek doesn’t know.”

_“What?”_

He ties the packet and slides it into his pocket numbly. “I never told Derek. He doesn’t know that I lied.”

“So he thinks-” Mom looks down, pressing a hand to her forehead. “Scott, you can’t do that to him.”

“I _know_ ,” he says miserably. “I panicked. Laura said forbade me from coming back, and I wanted to come back, and it all happened so fast-” He slumps. “I shouldn’t have done it. It’s no excuse for what I did.”

“No, it isn’t,” Mom says. She pushes him gently into a chair at the table, sitting down next to him. “Were you ever planning on telling him?”

“I was planning on actually eating the seeds,” Scott says. “As soon as I found out what eating them actually meant, I was going to. I just wanted – I wanted to talk to him about it first, make sure it was what he actually wanted.”

“After the wedding?”

“I mean, we’ll see each other before the actual ceremony, right?” Mom twists her mouth. “Oh.” He rubs the back of his head. “Well, he still has an out as long as I don’t actually eat anything, right? Marriage isn’t completely binding.”

Mom sighs. “Laura will not be happy. She doesn’t like her work being undone.”

“I’d rather deal with Laura’s wrath than Derek’s unhappiness,” Scott says. “It’s my fault, and I’ll deal with the consequences.” He runs a hand through his hair. “I just don’t want Derek to get hurt.”

“It’s too late for that.” She touches his hand gently. “Why did you do it?”

“I wanted to stay,” he says quietly. “And I think he wanted me to stay, too, and – I just wanted to get to make my own choice, for once. Even if no one else saw it that way.”

Mom squeezes his hand. “I understand, sweetheart. But you shouldn’t have done that to Derek.”

“I know. I’m going to make things right. Or, well, I’m going to try.” He traces the grains of the table, remembering what he had tried to ask Derek before he’d left. “Mom, can, uh. Can a person be stolen?”

“Stolen?” she repeats, leaning back in surprise. “Why do you ask?”

“Just something someone told me once,” he says. Derek hadn’t really gotten the chance to answer him. Scott still doesn’t understand what he might have said.

“Well.” Mom looks down pensively. “A person can certainly be taken against their will, but, _stolen_ …that makes it sound like they belong to someone else. You can’t steal someone from themselves.”

“So you can’t steal a god, then.”

“Of course not. We’re more than ourselves; we have more power and responsibilities than most. Scott,” she says, taking his hand and leaning in carefully, “You can only steal a god as much as they allow themselves to be stolen.”

He mulls over her words, brows scrunching. “But that’s not even really stealing anymore,” he says. “If you allow it, isn’t that just giving yourself to them?”

She pats his hand. “You tell me.”

 

Derek stands in the Fields of Asphodel, smiling contentedly. More and more flowers have begun to sprout all over the fields. Cerberus sneezes at the slowly growing chill on the other side of the gates, sometimes. Braeden mentioned leaves turning vibrant reds and coating forest floors the last time they talked; in the fields, ghostly green leaves spring from bare tree branches.

Scott will be back soon. They’ll have a lot to discuss, and lines to draw, since it’s Derek’s fault that he has to be here…but there are flowers, now, to remind him of home, and they’re not as bright as they were when they were alive, but. They’re something, at least. He turns to leave, and a new flower blossoming in the grass catches his eye.

The six petals spreading evenly from its center are white, which is probably why it looks so bright compared to everything else. But the dark line running through each petal is a simple brown with hints of red, and that shouldn’t shine as vibrantly as it seems to.

Derek crouches, peering closer at the flower. The buds clustered atop the blooming flowers bleed through with the line’s coloring, and in its closed form, they almost look pink. He laughs to himself, remembering what Cora had told him about Scott, and pokes the nearest bud like he always does now. The flowers don’t shy away from his touch, and they always feel like the faintest traces of sunshine, so he can never resist.

To his surprise, the bud immediately bursts into bloom. Derek sits back on his heels, staring at the flower. Maybe it was just ready to bloom, and it happened to open right when he touched it. He finds another bud, much smaller than the others and clearly still young, and carefully brushes it with his fingertip. It grows and unfurls under his touch, forming into a fully mature and eerily bright flower in the blink of an eye.

He falls back in shock. His hands brush a cluster of budding daffodils as he catches himself, and they don’t change at all. Of course they don’t change. Derek’s wandered through the entire meadow, poking flowers at random just because he can, and none of them ever change. It’s just this one particular flower that seems to…for some reason.

He swallows, boggling at the flower, then gets to his knees and plunges his hands into the ground, cupping a handful of dirt around the flower’s roots. The rest of the flower blooms in his hands. Derek stands, briefly contemplates just how far off the deep end he’s gone, and then runs out of the fields.

“I don’t understand!” he announces as he barges into the Fates’ room.

“You’re going to have to narrow things down a little,” Isaac says, sharing a smirk with Boyd.

Erica wrinkles her nose. “You’re tracking dirt everywhere,” she says. “Stay away from my spindle.”

He shakes his cupped hands at her and spills even more dirt. “What is this?”

“It’s a flower,” Boyd says. “More specifically, a flower and all its roots that you for some reason decided to dig up. You realize mortals just pluck them from the stem and leave the rest to grow, right?”

“Oh, no.” He stares down at the flower in horror. “Did I kill it?”

The Fates carefully don’t make eye contact each other, and then burst into laughter anyway. “Derek,” Isaac says, wiping at his eyes, “You do realize you’re in the land of the dead, right?”

“I just,” Derek says. “Look at it!”

“We are,” Erica says.

“It looks an awful lot like a flower,” Isaac adds.

“But – its colors are so bright!” Derek says. “And it _bloomed_ when I touched it!”

The Fates blink at each other. _“Oh,”_ Erica says enigmatically. “So you _did_ get them, after all.”

“I got what?” Derek asks. “What’s that supposed to-” He’s cut off when Boyd tosses a root across the room and into his open mouth. “What was that for?”

“Good, right?” Boyd says, munching on his own root. “I roasted it in the Phlegethon. Makes for an interesting flavor.”

“Yeah, it’s delicious,” Derek says distractedly. “But if we could get back to the – wait.” He squints at Boyd suspiciously. “Where did you get those roots.”

Boyd glances meaningfully at Derek’s hands and takes another bite of his root. “You’re eating a _flower?_ ” Derek demands.

“Yeah, I’m thinking of cutting it thinner and crisping it next time,” Boyd says. “See how that works out.”

“But,” Derek says, staring at his – at _the_ flower in confusion. “Why does it bloom when I touch it?”

“Well,” Erica says, glancing at the other Fates, “It _is_ called the asphodel.”

He blinks. Oh. “Like the fields.”

“That’s what it was made for,” Erica says, watching him carefully. “The dead. And their king.”

Oh. _Oh._ “I understand,” Derek says, nodding at his hands. “Melissa made a flower for Scott to have when he rules here.”

“Actually, Scott’s been the one teaching the mortals about it,” Boyd says. “They’ve started planting them by their tombs, even. He’s the one who made it.”

Derek frowns. “Scott made a flower for himself?” That doesn’t sound much like Scott. Like some of the other gods, maybe, but not Scott. Even when he’d been faced with an eternity in the Underworld, his first thought had been for the fate of the earth. He wouldn’t go through the trouble of making something just for himself.

He hears a faint thunk that sounds suspiciously like Isaac hitting himself in the head with his own shears. He looks up to see all three Fates gaping at him in disbelief. “You can’t be serious,” Erica says.

“Well, it doesn’t really _sound_ like Scott, but if you said it’s made for the dead and their king…” Derek shrugs, lifting the plant slightly. “I should go put it back before anything happens to it. He must trust me to take care of his flower for him, if I can make it bloom, too,” he adds happily. Scott trusts him with his flower. That’s important.

The Fates glance at each other again. “I’ll go with you,” Erica says, letting her spindle turn on its own. “You’ve never planted anything before, don’t want you to go not-killing it or anything.”

“That’s the thing, though,” Derek says, cradling the roots carefully as they go back to the fields. “It doesn’t feel dead. It feels…”

“Alive?”

He shakes his head, frustrated. “I don’t know what that feels like.”

“Oh, please,” Erica scoffs. Derek leads her to the spot where he’d unearthed the asphodel, and she carefully digs out more space in the small hole. “Try and remember how you felt. It wasn’t _that_ long ago for you.”

“The war was _very_ long ago,” Derek says. “And it’s not like I remember much before that, anyway.”

“I didn’t mean _that_ mess, Derek,” Erica says. She scoots back and lets Derek kneel down to carefully lay the roots in the hole, and starts helping him push dirt around it. “I meant when you met Scott.”

“Oh.” Heat rushes through him even as he shivers from a sudden chill, Scott’s laughing smile lighting up his mind. He feels sunshine burning his cheeks as his hands dig through the cool ground, dizzy and breathless with tingling fingertips. He pats the dirt around the flower one last time and straightens, then stares as it grows impossibly taller and sprouts new buds. Nearby, a new shoot pokes through the ground. _“Oh.”_

“Yeah, _oh_ ,” Erica says. “Do you understand now?”

He licks his lips, throat dry. “Scott made this for me.”

“Yes.”

“He made a flower for _me_.” He remembers what Boyd had said about Scott teaching the mortals. “He made a flower for the dead, for their fields above and below the earth, and he made it for _me_.” Derek looks up at Erica, a smile stretching across his face as his chest tingles. “ _Scott_ made a flower for _me_.”

“He sent you flowers, Derek!” Erica says, clapping her hands excitedly. “Do you understand what that means?”

He traces the petals with a finger. Six petals for six pomegranate seeds. They still have so much to figure out, so much to apologize for, but it feels like a step. It feels like burning hands wrapped tight around his and sweet morning dew on his lips. It feels like…He licks his lips and nods for Erica to follow him out of the field. “Maybe.”

 

* * *

 

For Scott’s last month on earth, the gods keep him busy travelling all over the world. Malia takes him on countless hunting trips, and he spends an entire day driving the sun across the sky in Danny’s chariot. Allison takes him to Athens and gives him a bottle of their finest olive oil; Parrish invites him to his forge and crafts him a beautiful box to house a small trinket.

Jackson brings him to Sparta to bless the young soldiers headed off to war. “Many of them will return to you soon,” he says proudly, then turns to meet Scott’s gaze. “You’ll take care of them,” he adds, voice lilting questioningly at the end. “As befitting an honorable death.”

“Of course,” Scott says, surprised. It’s the closest any of the gods have ever come to acknowledging his impending future in the Underworld, and his new role there. “I’ll make sure they’re treated with the honor they deserve.” Jackson nods shortly and turns back to watching the soldiers march.

The wedding is almost anticlimactic, after everything. He spends his last day with Mom, and bathes in the nuptial bath before dressing and donning his veil. They travel to Olympus after the sun goes down, and the feast quickly dissolves into drunken celebration.

Derek arrives alone in his dark chariot, and he doesn’t speak to anyone or touch any of the food placed in front of him. He can’t see Scott through the veil, not really, but – but he doesn’t even _look_ at him. Scott lowers his head and pushes his plate away as a pit settles deep in his stomach. Malia notices, and reaches over to pat his hand. “It’ll be okay,” she says, smiling encouragingly. “Derek will be a good husband to you.”

“Yeah,” Scott says, and stares down at his hands.

Somehow, amidst the revelry, Jackson ends up getting thrown through a wall.

When the feast ends, Laura leads Scott to the chariot, where Derek stands waiting. His hand encircles Scott’s wrist delicately, fingertips barely touching his skin, while Laura proclaims her delivery of Scott into his care. The gods sing loudly – and drunkenly, although Danny manages decently enough with his lyre – as they travel to the Underworld, and the flowers and dried fruit they toss barely manage to land in the chariot, much less on them. Derek stands stock still next to Scott, jaw clenched and staring straight ahead.

(Even drunk, Malia manages to hit Scott in the middle of his forehead. A flower hits the tip of his nose a moment later, and he looks up to see Allison waggle her eyebrows at him with a mischievous smirk.

Stiles throws twice as much dried fruit as anyone else, aimed primarily at Derek, and doesn’t manage to hit either of them at all. He does, however, accidentally hit the poor mules more than a few times.)

Derek steps down from the chariot almost before it rolls to a stop outside the Underworld’s gates, and lifts Scott down with his gaze averted. Scott hugs his mother one last time, squeezing her tightly, and then accepts her torch to light the chariot’s axle.

He’d always seen the burning of the axle as an odd sort of pageantry, before, but as the flames leap between him and the gods of Olympus, he understands. He isn’t one of them – he barely was in the first place, but now he never will be. The closing of the gates almost feels like an afterthought as he turns towards the Underworld. Derek’s hands hover at the edges of his veil, not quite close enough to touch, so Scott lifts it himself and looks his husband in the face for the first time since he’d left.

He sees hope in Derek’s eyes, and despair, and above all, yearning, so Scott smiles and leans up for a kiss. Derek jerks back, eyes shifting to the burning chariot and gods slowly dispersing beyond the gate. Scott bites back a sigh, quietly following Derek further into the Underworld. To his surprise, Derek stops walking, glancing back at him with an outstretched hand. When Scott takes it, Derek tugs him forward until he walks at his side instead of behind him, watching him with a challenge in his eye.

Scott understands. He’s Derek’s consort, he’s king of the Underworld, now; he can’t toddle after anyone like a child in need of guidance. He can’t follow, not anymore, not ever again. Derek expects him to lead right along with him, and he understands that.

Still, the silence hangs between them thicker and thicker with every passing breath. Scott understands this small gesture, but there’s still so much he doesn’t understand about Derek.

He doesn’t understand why they end up in the room with the pomegranate tree, until he notices that the table with the map is gone, and a large bed covered in pillows and blankets is pushed up against the wall in its place. “Oh,” he says involuntarily, and the tension in the air shatters.

Derek flinches. “It’s not-” he says quickly, stepping further away from Scott. “This is yours,” he says, gesturing around the room awkwardly. “I should go, now, there was a shipwreck and everyone aboard drowned-”

“Oh,” Scott says. He drops his veil onto the bed. “I’ll go with you, then-”

“No!” Derek all but shouts. Scott steps back, eyes wide. “I mean, you probably need rest after today,” he says, more calmly. “I can handle this one on my own.”

“But I should…I’m your…” Scott trails off helplessly. “I don’t know everything, yet, but I should be there to help.”

Derek stares at him, gaze inscrutable. “Next time, okay?” he says softly. “There will be more. There will _always_ be more. But right now, I need…I would like for you to rest.”

“Okay,” Scott says, forcing a smile onto his face. “Next time.”

Derek hesitates, as if he wants to say something more, but turns and leaves. Scott listens to his deliberately measured steps, belying his escape even more than if he’d run. He sighs, peels off his clothes, and carefully tucks his packet of seeds in the pomegranate tree before climbing under the blankets to sleep.

He wakes to a soft gust of wind in the darkness, as if someone had been standing over him and disappeared when he opened his eyes. He drops his head back onto a pillow with a sigh. “Next time,” he mutters to himself, and his eyes slide shut again.

Next time doesn’t happen.

Scott can’t say that he’s surprised.

He doesn’t understand much, but he understands running away, and he understands guilt. So he gives up trying to find Derek, and instead starts learning to rule the Underworld. He rows back and forth in Braeden’s boat as she teaches him the process that all new souls face, from Stiles’ delivery to their final judgment. He studies the map of the world with Erica, nodding as she points out the gray mists of death. He watches Isaac work, shears cutting threads at a steady rhythm as he names each new soul and their cause of death. He holds the cut thread in his hands as Boyd recounts their actions in life, and then he sits on his throne to decide their fate. Sometimes Derek sits next to him, watching the souls impassively; sometimes he is nowhere to be seen.

He wanders Styx’s shores, learning his way through the Underworld. When he gets lost – which happens more often than he’d like to admit – the river burbles at him, as if in laughter, before eddies swirl on the surface and point him in the right direction. Sometimes he gets so lost that he ends up back near Braeden’s boat, and she laughs and points her oar in the completely wrong direction.

He spends a lot of time with the Fates, being soothed by their rhythmic work as they teach him the history of the world. It doesn’t take long to realize that their concept of history runs very loose, indeed, and that half of what they tell him hasn’t even happened yet. He doesn’t understand most of what they say, but that’s okay, because no one does.

“Troy, now, that was ridiculous,” Erica says, shaking her head.

“I think you mean ridiculously _entertaining_ ,” Isaac says.

“It will be a mess,” Boyd says firmly. “It’ll probably give you a headache when it happens,” he adds to Scott. “You’ll probably hate it.”

“You’re no fun, Boyd,” Isaac pouts, and throws a pomegranate seed at him. Boyd bats it out of the air without even looking.

Isaac never shares his pomegranate seeds with Scott, and Boyd never offers him asphodel roots, and Erica always reminds him how much time he has left in the Underworld. They know what he did, of course. “Three months,” she says. “Don’t worry, you’ll get the hang of time here, eventually.”

“The secret is to never get the hang of it at all,” Isaac says.

Scott blinks. “That makes no sense.”

“Exactly!”

He’s sitting on the banks of Lethe, trailing his hand in her cool water – “Six weeks,” Erica whispers – when Derek finally finds him. He doesn’t turn his head to look at him, not until Derek sits down next to him, closer enough that their knees brush as he dips a hand into the river. “You’re doing well for yourself, here,” he says.

It’s a miracle that Derek’s talking to him at all, and he should be grateful, but Scott only feels annoyed. “Yeah, thanks for the help, by the way,” he says sarcastically. “For supposedly being king of the Underworld, I sure have no idea what I’m…” Derek huffs a laugh, smiling down at the water dripping through his fingers, and, oh. “…oh.”

“Oh?” Derek repeats neutrally.

“You didn’t have anyone to teach you when you came here, either,” Scott says. “That’s why you’ve been staying away, to see if I could figure it out on my own, too.”

“You’re figuring things out a lot better than I did,” Derek says. “You reached out to others for help. I just tried to bluster through with trial and error.” He laughs again. “A _lot_ of error. And that’s not why I’ve been staying away.”

“Oh.” He twists his hands in his lap, thinking of the packet still tucked away in the pomegranate tree. “Derek, we need to talk.”

“Yeah, we do,” Derek says, smile fading. “I’m sorry,” they say in unison, then, “No, _I’m_ – you don’t…” They trail off, sighing frustratedly at each other. “I got your flowers,” Derek adds, at the same time that Scott blurts, “I love you.”

“Oh,” Derek says faintly. He ducks his head, smiling down at his hands. “Um…thank you?” He laughs as he says it, though, so Scott just sighs.

“I deserve that, don’t I.”

“A little bit,” Derek says, winding their hands together. “Thank you for the flowers. I – it means a lot to me.”

“It means a lot to me, too,” Scott says. “I made it for you. For them,” he adds quickly, gesturing at the expanse of the Underworld, “But I was thinking of you when I made it.” He hesitates, then asks, “Is your favorite color really pink?”

Derek laughs. “I don’t really have one,” he says. “There’s not really much color down…here.” His smile fades slowly, and his eyes slip away from Scott’s. “Do you – is it – are you unhappy, being married to me?”

“Unhappy?” Scott repeats, laughing in disbelief. “Derek, I love it here. You made me a king. I can help people more than I ever could on earth, I can take care of them here. I-” The inevitability of death had seemed so terrifying to him, before, when there was nothing he could do about it and just had to watch mortals fade from the earth. But now that he stands on the other side, now that he _is_ the inevitability, it’s reassuring. It’s not power; it’s just…comforting. “I’m happy here, Derek, I promise.”

“I didn’t make you a king,” he says. “All I did was give you an empty title. You’re the one who made something out of it.”

“And I’m grateful you did that,” Scott says. “I didn’t even realize it, but I needed that. I needed to do all that myself, I needed to make my own choices.” Derek flinches, and Scott leans closer. “I’m trying to thank you, Derek. Even if you didn’t mean to, you’ve done so much for me.”

“I’ve done a lot to you, too,” Derek says. He drops Scott’s hands, and the smile he flashes him doesn’t reach his eyes. “I’m glad you’re happy here.” He leans in, and Scott’s eyes flutter shut as Derek kisses him softly.

When he opens his eyes, Derek is gone. He sighs heavily, the faint taste of asphodels fading from his lips. “Next time,” he says, resigned.

 

Derek isn’t hiding. He’s just – he’s – it’s –

Okay. He’s hiding.

“Seven days,” Erica murmurs.

“What?”

“Seven days until Scott goes back to the land of the living,” Boyd says. “She’s been keeping track for him. Are you really going to wait another six months to talk to him?”

“I’m just-”

Scott bursts into the room. “ _Seven days_ , Erica?” he demands. “When did that happen? I have to leave in a _week?_ ”

“Sorry, sweetie,” Erica says. She even sounds a little apologetic about it.

“But I still haven’t talked to Derek.”

Derek tries to sneak away, but Isaac pins his tunic to the floor with his shears. “Oops,” he says dryly, “my hand slipped.”

Scott spins around. “Derek! There you are.” He steps forward and grabs him by the wrist. “We’re talking. Right now.”

“Right here, right now?” Isaac asks excitedly.

“No.”

“Oh.” He looks disappointed. “Well, have fun storming the castle.”

“Isaac’s weird,” Scott says as he drags Derek into the room with the pomegranate tree and shuts the door. “Okay, just give me, like, ten seconds to tell you something, and then you can go ahead and disappear on me like you always do.”

“I don’t always-” Derek begins, then stops when Scott raises an eyebrow at him. “Not _always_.”

“Just hear me out, okay?” Scott says. He pulls something out of the tree and drops it into Derek’s hand.

Derek looks down in surprise when he feels soft fabric, and finds himself staring down at the scrap of cloth he’d wrapped the seeds in, six months ago. The ends are tied together, presumably to keep the last seed from falling out. “Okay?” he says, looking back up at Scott. “So what is it that you wanted to tell me?”

Scott takes a deep breath. “Okay. So, when you gave me the seeds, how many were there?”

“Seven,” Derek says. He watches as Scott unties the knots, and the cloth falls away to reveal – seven seeds. He counts them ten times, but there’s no way that six are missing. There isn’t even _one_ missing. “I don’t understand.”

“I’ve been here for months,” Scott says. “If those seeds were from the earth, they would’ve rotted away by now. They’re the same ones you gave me.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Derek says faintly. “But – you said that you-” His mouth drops as realization dawns on him. “You _lied?_ ” Scott nods. “But – Stiles said-”

“Who do you think taught me how to lie?”

“Oh.” He frowns at the seeds. “So you don’t actually have to stay here.”

“No.”

“And you didn’t have to marry me.”

Scott shifts uncomfortably. “No.”

“Then why _did_ you?”

“I’m sorry!” Scott bursts. He drags his hands through his hair. “I wanted to talk to you, before – I didn’t want to force you to get married, but then you said – and I wanted – but I should have…” He trails off, glancing up at Derek miserably. “I really wanted to talk to you first, but no one let me anywhere near the Underworld.”

“But you didn’t have to agree to it,” Derek says numbly. He doesn’t understand. “You could have told Laura the truth, and then you could have gone home. You didn’t have to-”

“And that’s why I’m apologizing,” Scott says. He reaches forward, then drops his hands to his sides. “I didn’t have to do any of this, and I shouldn’t have forced you to go along with it-”

“You didn’t force me to do anything.”

“-but I wanted to stay!” Scott finishes, and then stares at Derek. “Wait, what do you mean, I didn’t force you to do anything?”

“I wanted you to stay,” Derek says. He sighs, squeezing his eyes shut so he can’t see the look on Scott’s face. “I wanted you to stay, I wanted to marry you, I’ve wanted you from the moment I saw you and that’s why I _stole_ you.”

“Derek.” He hears Scott stepping closer to him, and warm fingertips brush his cheek. “Derek, look at me.” He opens his eyes to see Scott leaned in close, eyes so earnestly kind that Derek wants to cry. “You didn’t steal me.”

“No, I did,” Derek says. “I stole you, Scott. I took you here against your own will. I never stopped to ask you what you wanted, and I locked you into this without even giving you a chance to consent.”

“Then what do you call what I did to you?” Scott says, with a laugh that borders on frantic. “What you just said, I did the exact same thing. If you’d asked, I would’ve given my consent in a heartbeat.”

He tilts his forehead against Scott’s, eyes sliding shut. “But I didn’t ask.”

“I didn’t, either.” Scott laughs softly, breath puffing across Derek’s face like the first breeze of spring. “Derek, if you stole me, then I stole you right back. We’re just a couple of thieves, you and I.”

“We’re not even particularly good ones, either,” Derek says, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“Actually, I wanted to ask you about that.”

He raises an eyebrow. “About being thieves?”

“No,” Scott says with a roll of his eyes. He sits them down on the bed, looking serious and uncertain all at once. “I, actually. I wanted…these.” He nods at the seeds in Derek’s hands.

“Oh.” He starts folding the cloth back over them. “Of course. They’re yours, I gave them to you.”

“No,” Scott says quickly. “I mean, yes, but…” Derek watches him flounder, confused. “I wanted to eat them. But only if you want that, too.”

His throat closes. “But then you’ll _have_ to stay here.”

“I already want to.” He shrugs self-consciously. “I mean, the deal’s already in place, so it doesn’t really matter how much I eat here anymore, it’ll always just be the six months. I mean,” he adds quickly, “Unless you want to break that, Stiles promised that he’d help you divorce me if you wanted-”

“I don’t want that,” he says immediately, shaking his head firmly.

Scott lets out a breath. “Okay,” he says, relaxing. “I just wanted to…make it official, I guess. If you want to.”

“I want…” He sighs. “I don’t want you to be trapped here.”

“I can’t be trapped somewhere I actually want to be,” Scott says. “I love it here, Derek. I love _you_.”

His heart clenches. “I love you, too.” He leans forward and kisses him gently. “If you’re sure this is what you want…”

Scott nods eagerly. “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”

“Okay.” He ducks his head, smiling so hard his cheeks hurt. His face feels like it’s on fire. “Then I want this, too.”

Scott beams as brightly as a sunrise. He carefully moves six of the seeds from Derek’s hands to his own, folding the cloth over the last seed and setting it to the side. “Six seeds for six months,” he says cheerfully, and tips them into his mouth.

Derek holds his breath, waiting for…Scott swallows, blinking a few times. “I don’t feel any different,” he says. “Should I feel different?”

“I don’t know,” Derek says. He cradles a hand against his face, and his skin is as warm and lively as ever. “I guess not.”

Scott smiles, tilting his head into Derek’s hand and kissing the palm. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” Derek leans in and kisses him. The tart sweetness of pomegranates bursts across his lips, and he laughs breathlessly, chasing the taste into Scott’s mouth.

He’s floating again, caught between Scott and the Underworld. He gasps for air, breathing in the scent of Scott’s sweet sunshine and asphodels from the meadows. His throat tingles from Lethe’s spray and Scott’s trailing kisses. Styx’s currents tug him under, and Scott lays him back into the sheets.

His hands shake as they peel away each other’s clothes and press skin against skin. It’s a dizzying rush, the way Scott leans down and traces his hands over Derek’s body with near-reverence. He’s used to being forgotten, he’s used to epithets in place of his name and averted gazes even in worship, but Scott stares at him in awe and kisses him like he’s his salvation. It makes his chest tight, makes his breath hitch and his skin tingle under Scott’s touch. And as their bodies slide together, slick and searing with fire pooling deep in his gut, as Scott chants his name like a mantra, like a prayer, he feels treasured. He feels adored. He feels _beloved_. He pulls Scott in tight and falls apart in his arms.

Scott collapses over him, laughing breathlessly into his skin until Derek pulls him up for a kiss. He smiles against Scott’s lips, a laugh of his own bubbling up in his chest. “You still taste like pomegranates.”

“I’ll always taste like pomegranates,” Scott says. “ _Our_ pomegranates.” His smile fades, and he drops his face into the crook of Derek’s neck. “I have to leave soon,” he says mournfully.

Derek nods, running fingers through Scott’s hair. “I’m going to miss you. But I know you’ll come back.”

Scott leans back to look at him. “I will always come back to you,” he says, staring hard into Derek’s eyes.

“And I will always wait for you,” Derek promises. He cups his face gently with one hand. “I’ll always love you, Scott.”

“And I’ll always love you, Derek.” Scott tilts his head into Derek’s hand and kisses the palm. “My husband.”

He leans up and kisses him again, pressing their foreheads together and breathing in the sweet scent of pomegranates. “My king.”


	4. Epilogue

“Scott, _slow down!_ ” Stiles shouts. “When the freaking messenger god tells you you’re going too fast, okay, you _know_ you’re going too fast.”

Scott slows reluctantly, dancing in place as he waits for Stiles to catch up with him. “I’m just so _excited_. There’ll be even more asphodels this year, and I have to catch up on so many souls, and-” He pauses. “I bet Braeden didn’t even notice I was gone.”

Stiles pats him on the back. “Nah, she totally asked me about you.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Stiles says, nodding. “Four months in, but, hey, she noticed.”

“Aw.” Scott can’t help the goofy grin that spreads across his face. “She _does_ care.”

“Of course she does; you’re her king.” Stiles stops walking and turns towards Scott somberly. “Okay, I’m going to say goodbye to you here.”

“But we’re not there, yet.”

“Yeah, but as soon as we round that bend, we’ll see the gates, and then all you’re going to care about is Derek – aaaand there goes the Derek Face.”

Scott blinks, dragging himself back to Stiles’ words. “The Derek Face?”

“Yeah, that face you get whenever you’re thinking about Derek,” Stiles says. “Allison’s been keeping a running tally. I think we were up to once every hour by the time the leaves started changing.”

“Oh.” He glances down at his bag, filled with gifts from the gods. “That explains why she gave me so much olive oil, then.”

Stiles snorts. He holds out his arms. “Okay, c’mon, I want my best friend hug before I don’t see you again.”

“You bring all the new souls down here; I’ll see you all the time.”

“Yeah, but it’s not the same.” Scott steps into his arms and squeezes him tight. “I’m gonna miss you, Scott.”

“I’m gonna miss you too, Stiles.” He pulls back and pats his shoulder. “But I’ll be back soon enough.”

“Yeah, you better,” Stiles says, and hugs him one last time. “Okay, go ahead and slip into your Derek Face like you so clearly want to.”

“I don’t-” He completely forgets his train of thought as he sees the gates, and Derek waiting just inside. His heart leaps so high he feels like he could fly, and he dashes down the road as quickly as his feet can carry him.

(“Oh my me, it gets _worse_ ,” Stiles marvels. “I can’t wait to tell Allison.”)

The gates barely swing open in time before he flings himself into Derek’s arm. Derek catches him, laughing, and spins him in a tight circle before setting him down with a kiss. “You still taste like pomegranates,” he says, voice full of wonder. “ _Our_ pomegranates.”

“Told you,” Scott says smugly, smiling against his lips.

Stiles coughs from the other side of the gate. “I’ll just be going, then.”

“Bye, Stiles,” Scott calls without looking away from Derek.

Derek grins down at him, then looks up as he finally registers Stiles’ words. “Stiles, wait.” He steps forward, turning Scott to face him as well. “I wanted to thank you for everything you did to help Scott. I’m,” He looks down at Scott, smiling helplessly. “I’m so grateful.”

“Hey, anytime,” Stiles says. “Wait, I mean, no, not anytime. Actually, never. Yeah. Never again, I don’t even care if you give me the sad eyes, Scott, we are not going through those shenanigans again.”

Scott laughs. “Thank you, Stiles.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Stiles says. “By the way, Derek, just because you’re married to my best friend doesn’t mean we’re friends now or anything.”

“I wouldn’t expect that,” Derek says.

“Cool. Just so we’re on the same page.” Stiles says with a nod. He smiles softly. “I really am happy for you guys,” he adds. “Really. You deserve it.”

“Thank you,” Derek says, sounding surprised. Stiles nods again, the corner of his mouth quirked, and then zips away on his winged sandals. Derek turns to Scott. “Stiles is pretty weird.”

“Yeah, and you’re going to have to make friends with him eventually.” Scott laughs at Derek’s nonplussed face. “He’s my best friend, Derek! He’s really not that bad.” Derek arches an eyebrow. “Okay, he kind of is, but he’s my best friend. Just, eventually? For me, please?”

Derek sighs long-sufferingly. “All right,” he says. “For you.” He steps closer and winds their hands together. “Anything for you.”

Scott grins and leans up for a kiss. “Let’s go home.”


End file.
